Emilia Fox "Daunted" When She Asked To Play Queen Elizabeth In New Documentary

Emilia Fox was "daunted" when she was asked to play Britain's Queen Elizabeth in a new documentary. The 35-year-old actress was overwhelmed when she was offered the royal role in a U.K. TV drama series.

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Fox said: "It was daunting as I was literally offered the part one day and started filming the next. It happened very quickly and so I had to get into the part very quickly."

"It helped that I'd read how Helen Mirren, who played her in the film 'The Queen,' said that you can't imitate or copy her as it would be a parody."

Fox is one of five stars take on the role of the 83-year-old monarch in the Channel 4 series, which will document recent social history through the eyes of the British royal family.

Fox portrays the queen in 1955, just after her coronation and around the time the affair her sister Princess Margaret had with Group Captain Peter Townsend was revealed.

Former James Bond star Samantha Bond plays the queen in the second program, which will feature the IRA threats in the early 1970s and a kidnap attempt on her daughter Princess Anne.

The third show documents the queen's view on former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and the role of the monarch will be played by 'New Tricks' star Susan Jameson.

In the penultimate episode the queen's "annus horribilis" will be depicted, in which both Princess Anne and Prince Andrew were divorced while Prince Charles announced his separation from the late Princess Diana, with Barbara Flynn playing the monarch.

The final program will be set in 2005 as the queen - played by Diana Quick - accepts Charles' second marriage to Camilla Parker Bowles.

The 1997 death of Diana has been omitted as it was covered by the film "The Queen," for which Helen Mirren won an Oscar for her portrayal.

The program will mix dramatized scenes with news archive and testimony from royal insiders and historians.