Foy finds it ‘incredibly dispiriting’ that the sexist shorthand for Margaret Argyll remains ‘Dirty Duchess’. ‘This moralistic weaponising of women’s sexuality – in either direction – is deeply irritating. You’re damned if you do and you’re damned if you don’t. You’re damned if you’re too frumpy and you’re damned if you’re too sexy. It’s dull, so dull. The conversation hasn’t moved on at all.’
What intrigued her most, she says, is the husband-and-wife relationship at the emotional heart of the drama. ‘I was moved by that. It’s about two people who fall in love and then hate each other.’
The series’ director, Anne Sewitsky, describes the Foy-Bettany chemistry as ‘sparkling from the first’. The sophisticated nuance between them, she says, ranging from cruel to vulnerable, would sometimes take the story in unexpected directions.
‘Some of the scenes I got to act with Claire,’ says Bettany – speaking on Zoom from South Carolina, where he is filming (but cannot say what) – ‘were some of the most thrilling moments as an actor that I have ever had.’ The two had never worked together before. ‘Enough cannot be said about how brilliant Claire Foy was.’
Does Bettany, 50, who is best known for playing Vision in the Marvel franchise, think the Duke has any redeeming features? ‘Well,’ he replies, laughing, ‘I think he’s got a very nice nose.’
He sees the Duke as ‘an undiagnosed sociopath in search of a codependent partner. In the courtroom, he feels a great sadness, as a sadist, that his partner has chosen not to play that game any more. He’s bereft that she’s got out from under.’
The real scandal, he feels, is that ‘when the chips are down, the aristocracy, including Margaret’s friends, surround and protect the Duke. I hope the conversation can be about the class system that protected this dreadful human being and less about the rather boring sexual stuff.’
Foy agrees: ‘She [the Duchess] thought, somebody somewhere is going to say this isn’t right. He was violent and an alcoholic and an all-round terrible husband and someone’s going to agree with me. And they never did. They just never did. And they may never – even after this programme.’
Born in 1912 in East Renfrewshire, Ethel Margaret Whigham was the spoilt only child of Helen and George. Her father was a self-made textile millionaire, and the family moved to New York when Margaret was a baby. She was a solitary, rebellious and highly strung child, caught in the middle of her ill-matched parents. George, whom she worshipped, was a philanderer, and Helen, subject to mood swings and jealous of the bond between them, was obsessed with Margaret’s appearance and her marriageability.
