TV star Jason Watkins has enjoyed a long and successful career as an actor — but it didn’t get off to the best of starts.
His moment of glory at winning a coveted place at acting school RADA was marred when he jumped into the air for joy, but then landed on his pet cat and killed it.
“That actually happened,” says the man who portrays Prime Minister Harold Wilson in the new series of The Crown.
“When I got my acceptance letter from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, I was playing a lot of football at the time and I jumped in the air with delight and landed on my cat and killed it.
“I am sorry about that. I know it’s bleak and sometimes people laugh and some are shocked.
“It was a bizarre thing to happen. Poor thing. We buried him in the garden after. It was a weird day because it was a fabulous moment in my life and also the worst.”
Jason, 52, is a familiar TV face thanks to roles in Trollied, W1A, Line of Duty and Doctor Who.
Viewers will have to wait until November to see him as the pipe-smoking Labour PM.
The BAFTA award winner stars alongside Oscar-winning Olivia Colman as the Queen when the eagerly awaited Netflix series returns for its third season.
In a new interview, Jason says working with Olivia was a huge thrill – but very unpredictable because she would often “corpse” (collapse with laughter) on set.
“She did a fair amount of corpsing,” he says.
“There is quite a funny thing in Episode Two – I can’t tell you what it is, but it is funny.
“Olivia is outgoing, kind and funny and she kept all that bubbling away for the camera and she was the Queen.
“She had not won the Oscar when we were filming but it was heading that way.”
She was also much more relaxed on set than Jason.
“I had to have the right voice, the body language and the fat suit so there was lots to think about and then perhaps I would panic and get the fear like, ‘Oh my God, this is massive,’ he recalls.
“Some days I would be quite calm between takes, staying in character I suppose. But she would not do that at all.
“She would crack jokes, left right and centre and then ‘Action’.
The Crown resumes after the death of Winston Churchill in 1965 and trace the Queen’s warm relationship with PM Wilson.
It covers the decolonisation of Africa and the Caribbean, the birth of Prince Edward and Prince Charles’s 1969 investiture as Prince of Wales.
Jason predicts that viewers will be bowled over by Olivia’s portrayal.
“She is extraordinary,” he says. “I thought, ‘God I hope I am coming up with something here as she is brilliant.’”
