The Crown’s Erin Doherty picks up bargains at Lidl with girlfriend Sophie Melville

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She’s won acclaim for her portrayal of Princess Anne in the two most recent seasons of hugely successful series Netflix series The Crown.

And Erin Doherty looked a world away from her regal role over the weekend, when she was spotted shopping at budget supermarket Lidl with girlfriend Sophie Melville in south-east London.

The 28-year-old actress stepped out in casually cool style, sporting a green fleece top and matching Nike jogging bottoms as she pushed their shopping trolley through the rain-sodden car park.

With a grey woolly hat over her brown braided hair, the screen star rounded out her casual ensemble with a pair of chequered Vans shoes.

Actress Sophie opted for a lilac quilted coat and black jogging bottoms as she walked beside the star, while a patterned face mask rested beneath her chin.

With her golden locks falling beyond her shoulders, she chatted with her partner as they made their way into the low-cost supermarket. 

Erin and Sophie have collaborated onstage and most recently starred together in the production of Ross Willis’ debut play Wolfie at south London’s Theatre503.

They have since been seen out and about at glitzy showbiz events. Erin has kept a relatively low profile, unveiling an Instagram account just last year.

During a recent on-camera questionnaire for audiobook library Audible, Erin was asked what her greatest achievement was. She looked lovingly at Sophie before answering: ‘My relationship.’

Erin recently revealed that she’s ‘fallen in love’ with Princess Anne, after playing the royal in her wildly successful Netflix series.

The actress, who hails from West Sussex, told how she admires the Princess Royal’s courage and ‘steeliness’, much of which she believes comes from not having a typical ‘mother figure’ during her childhood.

The fourth season of The Crown is critical in its dramatisation of the Queen’s parenting of her daughter, with the monarch – played by Olivia Colman – boasting of leaving her and Charles alone as young children for five months during her and Prince Philip’s tour of Australia in 1954. 

Speaking to The Times, Erin said: ‘My choice… was to make [Anne’s steeliness] come from this childhood of not having that mother figure there as you would have wished. You kind of go, “Well, that’s fine. If that person isn’t there, I don’t need one”.’

She added: ‘I think Olivia does an amazing job at portraying [the Queen], but I think that is what’s fascinating about them.

This family is completely circulating around this woman who needs to do this thing that she does, but it actually completely detaches her from the beating heart that is a family.’

Erin said Princess Anne’s ability to ‘deflect judgement’, especially from the press while growing up, was one of her favourite traits to bring to life on-screen. 

‘That part of her personality was the most fun to embrace,’ she explained.  ‘She had this ability to completely deflect judgement. It had impacted her so early on from being introduced to the media.

‘They commented on her from when she was 16. They commented on her body. I find that fascinating and horrendous. If someone had called me frumpy as a 16-year-old, I’d have had a breakdown.’ 

Erin, who knew very little about the princess before landing the part, said one of the things that excited her most about playing her was the opportunity to bring her to life for people of her age.

‘For my generation, it would kind of be like an introduction to a person people deserve to know because she’s magnificent,’ the actress explained.

‘The way she is within the rigidity that is the Royal Family, the way that she behaves within that, is brilliant. And it was so much fun to play her… I kind of fell in love with her.’

She added that she was ‘so gutted’ writer Peter Morgan decided not to include the armed kidnap attempt of the Princess Royal in 1974, because it’s been so well-documented.

Anne was returning to Buckingham Palace from a charity event when Ian Ball tried to abduct her, planning to hold her ransom for millions of pounds, and shot four men in the process.

The princess heroically refused to get out of the car, even when Ball grabbed her arm.

Erin said she ‘completely gets’ why Morgan decided to leave it out of the drama, but ‘as an actor, I was gutted’.  

In a recent interview for Town & Country magazine, Erin said playing the royal gave her the courage to be honest, when previously she was focused on ‘not wanting to upset people’.

While gracing the cover of the publication, the actress – who will not play Anne in future series – also admitted that leaving behind her iconic role ‘is kind of like mourning someone at the end’.