Olivia Colman gets "bored" working in theatre

Speaking on the Dish from Waitrose podcast about love-hate jobs, Olivia - who last performed on stage in 2017's Mosquitoes - said: "Oh, most plays. Well, I'm terrible. I have quite a short attention span, so doing months of the same words, I struggle with.

" I'm scared for a long time, and then once, once the fear finishes, I'm so bored. Which is awful.

"And we did one play when the alarm went off, you know, like, yes! And I was out my costume in seconds-Yeah. 'Surely we can't go back?'... But they got us all back on stage. Like, argh. Put my costume back on."

Olivia can currently be seen opposite friend Benedict Cumberbatch in The Roses, and he praised her ability to slot into a role without having to spend a lot of time preparing.

He said: "Olivia turned to me at one point before rehearsals and went, 'How am I gonna tell Jay [Roach, director], I just, I don't do prep. I don't do prep.'

"She knows the words - she doesn't turn up not knowing her lines. She's amazing.

""[I can do it] at a push. But I flannel a bit more and, and try and sort of... You are extraordinarily gifted at that. Y

"She's just authentically who she is, and she's so emotionally intuitive and intelligent, and funny as hell and, but also really, really tapped in. It's just there. It's just there.

"And also when you're doing a script that's constantly changing, and that happens a lot in the worlds I've been of late, and it's kind of another marvel, and it still requires your talent. Which is to be able to improvise and play and be alive in the moment and then leave it."

But Olivia is equally in awe of her co-star's approach.

She said: "But you are very good at just doing instant, you know, when we- the couple of the really emotional scenes, it was so exciting, 'cause you're right there, with each other. You probably do more prep on a script that you're thinking, oh, f***, I don't know how to make this work."

However, the 51-year-old star admitted playing Queen Elizabeth in The Crown didn't offer much scope for improvisation or experimentation.

She said: "Everyone does know what she sounds like. So I couldn't just go, 'I'm gonna try it in Welsh.' "