Claire Foy says filming sex scenes is the 'grimmest thing you can do as a woman'

Foy opened up about her new role as the Duchess of Argyll in new BBC series A Very British Scandal. Photo / Getty Images

Claire Foy has described filming sex scenes as "the grimmest thing you can do", as the BBC is about to screen her latest role as the scandalous Duchess of Argyll.

The Duchess's sex life was laid bare in her infamous 1963 divorce trial, during which she was alleged to have had more than 80 lovers.

Some of her relationships are depicted in A Very British Scandal, which begins on BBC One on Boxing Day.

"It's horrific," Foy told Radio 4's Woman's Hour. "It's a really hard line because basically you do feel exploited when you are a woman and you are having to perform fake sex on screen.

"You can't help but feel exploited. It's grim - it's the grimmest thing you can do, and you feel exposed. And everyone can try to make you not feel that way, but unfortunately it's the reality."

Foy conceded that "there's not actually that much" sex in the BBC series. In particular, the re-enactment of the "headless man" scene - a sexual act captured in a Polaroid photograph, and which became the most sensational piece of evidence at the Argyll vs Argyll divorce case - is only glimpsed on screen.

'She got under my skin'

Foy, best known for playing the Queen in the first two seasons of The Crown, said she had been reluctant at first to play the Duchess because "I was very nervous about playing someone posh".

However, she explained: "She sort of got under my skin - the injustice of the story. I really wanted to do something different to the way she had been perceived and portrayed and the way she was treated, not only in the public eye but by the justice system.

"She was a complete mystery to me, really naughty but also really well-behaved, full of contradictions. I never got to the bottom of her. But it was a lot of fun."

Responding to the suggestion that the Duchess was the first woman to be publicly "slut-shamed" by the "mass media", Foy dismissed the term.

She said: "I hate the phrase slut-shaming, I absolutely hate it.

"But I think that women have basically been slut-shamed forever. I think Eve was probably slut-shamed."

The three-part series will air on BBC One over three consecutive nights in the UK.

It was made by Sarah Phelps, who previously wrote a series of Agatha Christie adaptations for the BBC. Foy said Phelps wanted to highlight the aristocracy's attitude to extramarital sex, which was: "It's okay for us to do it, but it's not okay for everyone to know we do it."