With the nearing debut of The Crown’s season 4, the show continuously makes several headlines including about its possible extension. Luckily for the fans of the royal family, Peter Morgan, creator/writer of the show confirmed this earlier in January. Along with the season renewal also came the name of who will play the role of older Queen Elizabeth II.
Netflix’s regal drama saw Morgan’s distinct way of chronicling the lives of the British royal family. The actors are replaced every two seasons to better reflect the ages and likenesses of the royals through the decades.
Season one and two saw Claire Foy and Matt Smith first play the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh. Then, Olivia Colman and Tobias Menzies succeeded to the throne for the next two seasons. The third season also introduced us to Princess Anne (Erin Doherty), Prince Charles (Josh O’Connor), and Camilla Parker-Bowles (Emerald Fennell). In season four, newcomer actress Emma Corrin will star as Princess Diana, and the formidable Gillian Anderson as Margaret Thatcher.
With season four being the last appearance for Colman, viewers eagerly anticipate who would be replacing her for the titular role.
Who will play older Queen Elizabeth in The Crown Season 5?
It will be none other than Imelda Staunton, the Oscar-nominated actress perhaps best known for playing Dolores Umbridge in the Harry Potter series. “I have loved watching The Crown from the very start,” Staunton said after her cast confirmation in January 2020.
“As an actor it was a joy to see how both Claire Foy and Olivia Colman brought something special and unique to Peter Morgan’s scripts,” she furthered. “I am genuinely honored to be joining such an exceptional creative team and to be taking The Crown to its conclusion.”
At the time when Netflix revealed Staunton’s casting, the news of Morgan’s decision to end the show early also broke. Originally, the series was projected to last six seasons, but would rather finish now on its fifth. Morgan called it “the perfect time and place to stop.”
However, months after that news, Netflix took back its decision and announced that The Crown would again run for six seasons. This time, Morgan said, “As we started to discuss the storylines for Series 5, it soon became clear that in order to do justice to the richness and complexity of the story we should go back to the original plan and do six seasons. To be clear, Series 6 will not bring us any closer to present-day—it will simply enable us to cover the same period in greater detail.” (That same period, to be clear, will end in the early 2000s.)
The Crown season 4 will premiere on November 15. It will be exclusively available for streaming on Netflix.