Gerrard Kaonga
Claire Foy has opened up about her childhood and how it influenced how she lived her life and ultimately why she didn’t think she’d make it past 40.
When we are young, most people have the luxury of not having to think about when they are going to die, something often taken for granted.
British actress, Claire Foy, wasn’t one of those individuals and has recently spoken out in a new interview about her thoughts surrounding life and death.
She also revealed what difficulties she had to deal with as a child that made her believe she wouldn’t make it past 40 years old.
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Speaking to the Times, the 41-year-old actress, best known for playing Queen Elizabeth in Netflix's TV show The Crown, explained that she had multiple medical problems as a child.
She explained that these health problems ultimately left her ‘in horrible and debilitating’ pain at times and impacted her ideas around death.
Foy said some of her health issues included juvenile arthritis at the age of 13, meaning she needed crutches and doctors discovering she had a benign tumor behind one eye at the age of 17. This required her to have surgery and take steroids.
Foy noted that there is often a taboo surrounding talking about death.
She said: “I mean, death? The fact we’re all on our way out? It’s something we just don’t want to think about while we’re alive. But I have thought about death my whole life.
“I just presumed that it was going to happen, especially through my childhood.”
She went on to say: “My thing was that I was never going to make it past 40 – ever.
“I have had many medical things in my life. But, yes, I’m still here and someone once told me, ‘You know, most people live?’ They meant most people live quite a long and lovely life. Well, not necessarily lovely. But people do tend to live. That’s what humans want to do. We want to survive, and that’s quite reassuring.”
Foy also said prior to reaching 40, because of her outlook on death, she experienced life with a greater sense of urgency.
She said knowing that you could die at a young age makes you appreciate the mantra of living every day as if it's your last.
She added: “Because I was ill when I was younger, I just thought, ‘Let’s crack on!’ And then, later, a panic sets in, that middle-class idea of what people are meant to do; have children, get to a certain stage in a job. That can be quite dangerous because you get used to momentous things happening all the time – big moments.”