Prince William made a hilarious joke to a well-known actress during an Investiture at Windsor Castle this week. The Prince of Wales made Shameless star Anne-Marie Duff an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for services to drama on Wednesday.
During the ceremony, he joked with the actress about her previous role playing Elizabeth I. Ms Duff, 54, played Fiona Gallagher in Channel 4’s Shameless TV show and won a Best Supporting Actress BAFTA for her role as Grace Williams in Apple TV’s series Bad Sisters.
She also previously portrayed Queen Elizabeth I in the 2005 BBC dramatisation of the monarch’s life, titled The Virgin Queen.
In an interview afterwards, Ms Duff revealed that while discussing her role as the Tudor monarch Prince William joked: “This should all be old hat for you, or something”.
Asked if the event had been as expected, she told the Press Association: “(Windsor Castle) is like a treasure chest, isn’t it? Because every piece of every room is swollen with history and art and value, so it’s very specific.
“To be in this environment where people do live and do sit down and have their dinner and all of those things – you know, when you’re on location, you don’t really have that feeling of something like that, but this is someone’s home, which is just extraordinary to me.”
The Virgin Queen was not filmed at royal residences for security reasons, she said. Ms Duff lives in north London and has a son with her former husband and Shameless co-star James McAvoy.
She said she and Prince William discussed balancing work and parenting and “how we’re all kind of the same”.
Her next guaranteed job is not until 2026 and she said she cannot talk about other projects that may pop up before then. “There’s so much nonsense now, you can’t even read scripts now without NDAs (non-disclosure agreements)”, she said.
Asked how she felt after being formally made an OBE, Ms Duff said: “Fabulous, really lucky. You never imagine that – I think especially for people who work in the arts – you never really have a sense of what you do as having a great deal of importance or being a contribution to anything.
“You’re just so busy working away. It feels extraordinary to be recognised.”
