W
e are completely dif-
ferent actors in the
same way we are
completely differ-
ent people,” says Matt Smith of his
friend and costar Claire Foy. “She’s A
and I’m Z. There’s an entire alphabet
between us.” As if to emphasize the
contrast, he is speaking to me over
the phone from Los Angeles, where
he is filming reshoots for his first
Marvel film, Morbius. “It’s sunny,
and I am just sort of standing on my
balcony going, ‘Well done, L.A., for
being so sunny today,’” he says, his
voice full of fun.
I meet Foy, on the other hand, in
a bustling upstairs restaurant next
to St. Pancras station in London, a
place full of people grabbing lunch
or enjoying a drink on their way to
somewhere else. “Matt being in L.A.
makes him sound like the fancy one.
I am just the person who stays here,”
she says with a giggle. But there is no
mistaking her star power. As we talk,
tucked in a corner, a fan walks up: “I
just want to say, ‘You’re amazing.’”
Foy smiles warmly. She’s wearing
a taupe Isabel Marant polo-neck
jumper with cream cutoff Levi’s and
Converse trainers. Despite her casual
appearance, there’s a charisma there.
For the first time since they played
opposite each other as HM the Queen
and HRH Prince Philip in the first
two seasons of The Crown, the glam-
orous pair are working together
again, bringing their collective mag-
netism to bear on Lungs, a play by
Duncan Macmillan that was staged
at London’s Old Vic theater last year
and opens at the Brooklyn Academy
of Music on March 25. This clev-
er, witty work, initially produced in
2011, takes the huge subject of cli-
mate change and refracts it through
an unnamed young couple planning
their own future, wondering whether
to have a child. “I could fly to New
York and back every day for seven
years and still not leave a carbon foot-
print as big as if I have a child,” says
Foy’s character. “Ten thousand tons
of CO2. That’s the weight of the Eiffel
Tower. I’d be giving birth to the Eif-
fel Tower.” The text is a timely and
informed work, but the quicksilver
dialogue and weighty emotional effect
rely heavily on the chemistry of the
two actors. CONTINUED ON PAGE 184
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