Despite being one of Britain’s foremost actresses, Helen McCrory is rarely recognised in public. Recently, a taxi driver refused to believe who she was. “You’re not Helen McCrory,” he said. She was unable to convince him of the truth. I can see how he made the mistake. In the flesh, despite having given birth only a few weeks before, she is slight, pretty and, although a formidable presence, does not remotely resemble Cherie Blair, whom she portrayed so convincingly in Stephen Frears’s film The Queen. “I’ve often sat down with people talking about a film I’ve been in and they haven’t realised I was in it. I think they’re just being weird by not saying anything until I realise what has happened,” she says. Not that she is phased by any of this: “What really matters to me is what my peers think.”