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Erin Doherty has admitted using her ‘posh’ Princess Anne accent to order coffees gets her served quicker than using her natural south London sound.
The actress, who is from Crawley, West Sussex, is well known for her role as the royal in The Crown, using received pronunciation in the style of the Royal family.
And Erin, 33, admitted that the accent had it’s benefits, as she believes it carries authority and she would be given her order at a much speedier rate.
Speaking to The Observer magazine, Erin said: ‘I remember ordering coffees in a Princess Anne voice, and it was massively different, which was interesting.
‘Without being stereotypical, it got me my way quicker. My coffee was in my hand. There’s an authority to voices like that. And whether we like it or not, you respond differently.’
Erin also said that after playing the King’s sister most people just assumed that she was posh and often looked ‘surprised’ when she spoke in her real accent.
She said: ‘You could see it in their faces. Not in a mean way, but you’re like, you’re just hearing my voice right now, and having a bit of an out-of-body experience.’
So convincing was her posh voice, Erin previously spoke about how she turned down other upper-class roles to avoid being typecast after playing Princess Anne.
Erin, who won critical acclaim for her portrayal of the young Princess Royal – said that while she ‘loved’ playing the Princess Royal in the third and fourth season of the royal drama but that she deliberately distanced herself from similar characters.
Erin added that while it was ‘nerve-wracking’ to turn down work, she took a ‘gamble’ and declined offers to play various upper-crust characters.
In a 2022 interview with the Sunday Times, she said: ‘A lot of upper-class characters came my way after playing Anne, and I said no because I didn’t want to be stuck doing that. ‘
Erin, who knew very little about the Princess before landing the part, says she learned a lot from portraying the steely royal – famous for her frankness and headstrong personality.
‘Anne taught me you have to care less about people’s opinions’, said Erin.
She previously opened up about her love for Anne’s courage and candour, much of which she believes comes from not having a typical ‘mother figure’ during her childhood.
The series is critical in its dramatisation of the Queen’s parenting of her daughter, with the monarch – played by Olivia Colman – boasting of leaving her and Charles alone as young children for five months during her and Philip’s tour of Australia in 1954.
Speaking to The Times, Erin said: ‘My choice… was to make [Anne’s steeliness] come from this childhood of not having that mother figure there as you would have wished. You kind of go, ‘Well, that’s fine. If that person isn’t there, I don’t need one’.’
She added: ‘I think Olivia does an amazing job at portraying [the Queen], but I think that is what’s fascinating about them. This family is completely circulating around this woman who needs to do this thing that she does, but it actually completely detaches her from the beating heart that is a family.’
Erin’s next part will see her resume her role in the second series of A Thousand Blows as Mary Carr, who has an exaggerated London East End accent.
