Post your questions for Imelda Staunton
She’s acting royalty – literally, having played Queen Elizabeth II in The Crown – but what questions would you ask her?
It is perhaps fitting that Imelda Staunton ended up playing Queen Elizabeth II in the last two series of The Crown, considering she has been acting royalty for years. Her film career has seen her voice champion egg-layer Bunty in 2000’s Chicken Run, followed by roles in Mike Leigh’s 2004 drama Vera Drake and the 2005 comedy Nanny McPhee. In 2014, she played the formidable Welsh miners’ strike campaigner Hefina in Pride. She also plays Lady Maud Bagshaw in the first two Downton Abbey films, and voices Paddington’s beloved Aunt Lucy in all three Paddington films. For a whole generation, however, she will always be Dolores Umbridge in two of the later Harry Potter films, where she somehow made a pink cardigan almost as frightening as Voldemort.
On TV, she has cropped up in everything from Little Britain and Doctor Who to Psychoville, Brassic and a memorable guest appearance in the fourth series of A Bit of Fry & Laurie, where – for reasons known only to F&L – she was introduced as “Snutty”. Whether she’s playing a chicken, a bear or the head of state, there is always something unmistakably Imelda about her performances: warm and calm but with the distinct impression that she won’t stand for any nonsense.
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