David Bowie Told Lesley Manville She Missed a Drum Solo From Princess Margaret at Mick Jagger’s Party Decades Before She Played the Royal in ‘The Crown’ Season 5

Decades before Lesley Manville played Princess Margaret in The Crown Season 5, she partied with classic rock royalty. Coincidentally, the actor and the Countess of Snowdon moved in the same circle and almost crossed paths at a party on the enchanting island of Mustique.

If Manville hadn’t left the island early, she would’ve witnessed an epic drum solo from Princess Margaret at one of Mick Jagger’s parties.

David Bowie invited the actor and her then-husband, Gary Oldman, to his home on Mustique

The island of Mustique flourished because of its “royal seed,” Architectural Digest wrote in 1992. Colin Tennant, Lord Glenconner, bought it for cheap in the late 1950s and gifted Princess Margaret a plot of land as a wedding present.

Then, Tennant hired Swedish architect Arne Hasselqvist to transform the royal‘s uncle-in-law Oliver Messel’s architectural sketches into a home. Hasselqvist never left and went on to build most of the island’s extravagant mansions.

Bowie knew of Mustique through Jagger. “Why Mustique indeed,” he told Architectural Digest. “Frankly, it was quite odd. I went down to spend a couple of days with Mick and Jerry in their house, and while waiting for the boat—I was going to take a trip up and down the Caribbean and it never happened because the propeller fell out or something—I was stranded.

“And I just went scouting one day, having nothing better to do, there being little else to do there, and I came across this area of land attached to Arne Hasselqvist’s. And we talked about it, and I thought, Why not?”

Bowie explained that Mustique was where people went “to be rich together.” He bought the land next to Hasselqvist’s home and built his own paradise in 1986. Bowie kept his time there intimate, inviting only a few friends over at a time, including his friend, Gary Oldman, and his then-wife, Manville.

During a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly, Manville said, “My husband at the time knew David Bowie. I’d just had my son, and [Bowie] said, ‘Look, come over to my villa for a holiday whilst you’ve got the new baby and everything.'”

Bowie said Mustique was a “storehouse of anecdotes, none of which will pass my lips.” However, Manville shared an interesting anecdote from her time on the island.

Bowie told Lesley Manville she missed a drum solo from Princess Margaret

Since Bowie, Jagger, and Princess Margaret owned homes on Mustique, they tended to come together for parties. However, Manville revealed she missed one where the royal played a drum solo.

“I was staying in Mustique at David Bowie’s house and I then had to come home because I wasn’t well,” Manville continued. “[Bowie] then rang me and said, ‘It’s such a shame you had to go home.’ The night that I left, they’d been invited around to Mick Jagger’s, and Princess Margaret was there playing the drums!

“So I would have absolutely adored to have met her and seen her playing the drums. [Laughs] Yeah, but it didn’t happen I’m afraid because I got poorly and had to come home, which is rather annoying.”

Manville never met Princess Margaret, but she has encountered royalty before. She met King Charles III during her time with the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-upon-Avon. In 2015, she was awarded an OBE (Order of the British Empire) by Prince William.

Now, Manville will debut as Princess Margaret in The Crown Season 5 on Nov. 9, decades after she almost saw the queen’s sister play her drum solo.

“I could not be happier to be playing Princess Margaret,” Manville said after Netflix announced her casting (per Town & Country). “The baton is being passed on from two formidable actresses and I really don’t want to let the side down. Furthermore to play siblings with my dear friend Imelda Staunton will be nothing short of a complete joy.”

Manville isn’t the only person to play Princess Margaret without having met her

Manville isn’t the only person to play Princess Margaret who didn’t get a chance to meet her. Her predecessors, Vanessa Kirby and Helena Bonham Carter, didn’t either. However, Carter technically did come across her at parties.

“My uncle courted Margaret at one point,” she told Town & Country of her uncle, politician Mark Bonham Carter. “They went on to become good, longtime friends. She would be at his parties, and you were very aware that a princess was there. I remember going, ‘I mustn’t turn my back on her, I mustn’t turn my back on her.'”

Carter couldn’t exactly use her childhood memories of Princess Margaret to help her in her portrayal years later. Instead, Carter consulted the royal’s friends, an astrologer, a graphologist, and a psychic, according to The Guardian. During her meeting with the psychic, Carter spoke directly to Princess Margaret.

On The Graham Norton Show, she said, “I did meet a psychic, who’s a friend of mine… she said, ‘Oh Margaret is here, does that mean anything?’ And I said, ‘Yes, it does.'” Carter asked Princess Margaret if she could play her.

The royal allegedly said Carter was the better actor to play her, although she gave some pointers on how to be the best. She instructed Carter to “brush up and be more groomed and neater” and to “get the smoking right.”

Kirby, Carter, and now Manville have undoubtedly made Princess Margaret proud. Although, it’s still a wonder what the princess was like on the drums.