Jenna Coleman has said she and her boyfriend Tom Hughes don’t take their Victoria characters home with them.
The actress plays Queen Victoria in the popular ITV period drama and Hughes stars as her husband Prince Albert, but the pair shrug off their royal roles before leaving work.
“I definitely do not go home and play Queen Victoria, I want to make that clear,” Coleman told The Sunday Telegraph’s Stella magazine.
“But I really enjoy the company of her, if that makes sense.”
The actress went on: “There’s a lovely familiarity, and getting to know them as a couple has been a real joy.”
Asked whether Hughes remains in character after shooting, Coleman replied: “No, no.”
However, while the actress said the monarch does not go home with her, she said she does sometimes ask herself “What would Queen Victoria do?” in certain situations.
“She was very up on everyone else’s business,” she said.
“When she was young, she kept a journal knowing it would be read, and some of the entries are literally just, ‘Woke up at nine, dinner alone.’
“But she contacted the police about Jack the Ripper, asking if they’d considered this or thought about that.
“And she wrote to the Elephant Man every year.”
Asked if the Queen might be using social media if she was here today, Coleman said: “Yeah, I do wonder that. She was a lady of letters, and I don’t think she ever had a particularly retiring nature.”