Claire Foy feels under pressure as a mother.

Claire Foy (c) Harper's Bazaar/Erik Madigan Heck

Claire Foy (c) Harper's Bazaar/Erik Madigan Heck

The 37-year-old actress has a six-year-old daughter called Ivy, and Claire feels there's a weight of pressure and expectation that comes with being a mother.

She shared: "There's this pressure to be this cake-baking, fun, playing 24-hours a day mother, being some sort of vehicle for entertainment, love and food.

"I'm just prepared to apologise for who I am: 'I am so sorry – but you're lumped with me. This is the hand you've been dealt, let's try to make the best of it.'"

Claire famously played Queen Elizabeth in Netflix's 'The Crown'.

And the actress thinks there's something "so beautiful" about the monarch's marriage to Prince Philip, who passed away in April at the age of 99.

Claire - who will receive the Actress award at the Harper's Bazaar Women of the Year Awards - said: "I've always played Peter [Morgan]'s fictionalised version of who he thought was the Queen.

"I knew I would have to have attachments and beliefs about who that character was, but what right have I got to assume any sort of connection to her or ownership of her? But they were married for such a long time, and there is something so beautiful about their commitment to one another."

Claire also explained what she typically looks for in her on-screen roles.

She told the December issue of Harper's Bazaar UK: "It's to underestimate the fact that women have, for centuries, been wives and mothers, and still are. That's denying our entire history of what it means to be a woman.

"I'm interested in what she's doing, what she thinks, what she believes. I don't ever want to say I'm never playing a part that is supporting, or someone's wife, because they exist, and if you can give them a voice, you should, instead of just making all these female characters that are basically just men but look like women – the superhero women who can fly, punch men in the face, that sort of stuff."

The December issue of Harper's Bazaar UK is on sale from November 5. (https://harpersbazaar.com/uk/woty)