Victoria: Jenna Coleman reveals what to expect with Season 2
PIANOS AND BABIES – those were the two main challenges facing actress Jenna Coleman as
she approached filming season two of BBC First’s historical epic Victoria, in which her character,
Queen Victoria, enters a new chapter of her life: motherhood.
“Nine births,” says Coleman.
“Nine births!
That’s what we had to get through.
I was hoping they would do it all in a big montage shot...”
The culmination of season one saw the monarch give birth to her first child.
Season two will portray the baptism and is then bound by history to introduce eight more
additions to the British Royal Family.
Much of the latest offering’s early plotlines follow the young Queen as she struggles to
cope, while Prince Albert (Tom Hughes), infuriatingly for Victoria, embraces fatherhood.
The real Queen Victoria was famously no fan of babies, despite her expertise in producing
them.
“She called pregnancy ‘the shadow side of marriage’,” says Coleman.
“She hated babies – she thought they looked like frogs in the way their arms wiggled around
– and she thought breastfeeding was for cows.
It’s safe to say that this season we are going to see one unhappy mother!”
Though Coleman, who prepared for the role by immersing herself in all 62 million words
of Victoria’s diaries, does still sympathise with her Queen.
“What you have to remember is that pregnancy is not a choice she gets to make; she is bound
to get pregnant as a part of her duties,” Coleman acknowledges.
“She resents pregnancy, not because she doesn’t love her children but because it’s
beyond her control.”
What Victoria would much rather be doing, as we’ll see in the second season, is spending
time with her beloved Albert, played by Coleman’s rumoured real-life boyfriend, Hughes.
And yet as with so many marriages, the arrival of children upsets the balance of their relationship.
Which is where the piano comes in.
The couple tinkle the ivories in a way that Coleman reveals is almost conversational.
“The piano is where they come together through music,” she says.
“They do a lot of duets together – they have arguments and flirt through piano duets.
Which is why I’ve been trying hard to get better at the piano – it needs improvement.”
Whereas Hughes is an accomplished pianist, Coleman insists she is not.
“And that’s really annoying!”
she exclaims.
“He’s a musician, one of these damned actors who can do everything.
But this season we wanted to show them playing together, to do it properly.
So I had to play catch-up, get my Beethoven on!”
Queen Victoria lived her life in the public gaze and Coleman, to an extent, has too.
Cast at 19 in the British soap Emmerdale, playing a vicar’s niece gone bad, global
recognition came to her in 2012 when she took on the role of Clara in Doctor Who.
The peculiarities that now come with portraying a royal aren’t lost on Coleman.
“It’s such a unique way to live your life as a member of the Royal Family.
It’s really the only job that you’re born into – you don’t have a choice,” she
explains.
Yet, even as we enter this new season, Victoria is still only in her early 20s.
“She’s still, in part, a girl and a girl with so much spirit,” says Coleman.
“That’s what I find so fascinating about her.
She knows what her duty is and happens to be Queen, but at the same time she’s full
of enthusiasm and passion for life and the arts; she likes balls and dances.”
“It’s a misconception”, Coleman adds, “to think of her as the lady in black who
was widowed at 42 and never ceased grieving.”
“Because photography wasn’t invented until late in her life, the only photographs we
have of her are in that stern, regal pose when she’s older.
But she’s much more of an unexpected Queen.”