Jenna Coleman has enchanted audiences with her performance in Victoria, but now the show's producer Damien Timmer has revealed something wasn't quite right about the star's costume. Because Jenna's eye colour differed dramatically from Queen Victoria's, the actress donned contact lenses – but during a recent press launch screening, Damien realised that these were noticeable onscreen.
Jenna Coleman wore contact lenses for Victoria
"Jenna has brown eyes, and Queen Victoria famously had blue eyes," he told Radio Times. "Despite everyone's best efforts in post-production, the contact lenses were really obvious and strange – you could see these big plastic rims around her eyes."
The show's production team quickly set about rectifying the situation, spending three weeks going frame-by-frame to blue the contact lenses' edges. "It cost a lot of money and everyone was very cross with me," Damien confessed.
She plays Queen Victoria in the drama
Contact lenses or not, Jenna has floored fans with her role as Queen Victoria in the drama which gives viewers an insight into the monarch's earlier years.
Speaking at the London press conference, the 30-year-old actress described the opportunity to bring Queen Victoria to life as "an absolute gift", adding that the job had been "impossible to turn down".
"The more I read the script, the more it unfolded in front of me and it was impossible to turn down," she explained. "I would be crazy to turn it down, it's a gift, an absolute gift to try and bring this to life."
Jenna and co-star Tom Hughes are rumoured to be dating
She added: "Funnily when I left Doctor Who the first thing I said was, 'I don't want to do another series for a while and then Daisy Goodwin (the writer) and Damien Timmer (managing director) took me out for lunch and so it changed. It's been such an adventure. I've loved it."
Fans of the show were delighted earlier this month to discover that Victoria has been commissioned for a second series, with Jenna and rumoured boyfriend Tom Hughes, who plays Prince Albert, set to return as well.