If you happen to get an invitation to Olivia Colman’s house (lucky you) it’s not the Oscar she won for her role in The Favourite that you’re likely to see. Proudly perched somewhere in her home is an envelope which displays a stamp of Colman as Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, which the actor swiped from the set of The Crown.
Colman, who played the late Queen on the hit Netflix series’ third and fourth seasons, held on to the keepsake after it was shoved into her hands by a crew member.
“It was a lovely props person who said, ‘You know what, I’m not allowed to give you this, but just take that,’” Colman told Graham Norton last month on his talk show as she described how she acquired the memento.
“On my first day on The Crown, there was an envelope on the desk that had ‘To Her Majesty The Queen’ and it had my face on a stamp,” the actor excitedly expressed to the talk show host. Envelopes with the stamp were used in the opening scene of The Crown’s Season three.
Talking to Variety about Queen Elizabeth II’s passing away last September, Colman said: “On Elizabeth’s legacy and service to her country, I wouldn’t know where to begin with that. She made a promise as a young woman, and she absolutely kept it with such dignity. We’re all incredibly impressed by what she did.” Out of respect, filming of the show’s sixth season was paused on both the day of the Queen’s death and funeral.
Of her Oscar, Colman told Norton: “It’s in the cupboard…It’s a bit ostentatious to have it out.”
