Olivia’s plainly best choice to be the Queen
OLIVIA Colman got the role of the Queen in The Crown because she can be both “plain and dazzling”, showrunner Peter Morgan says.
The writer also admitted he was stunned when the Broadchurch star accepted the role on the first phone call without even meeting with him.
He said: “We felt Olivia had something that corresponded. It’s her ability to be both plain and dazzling, knowable and unknowable, and there’s a sort or everywoman there, something very connectable.
“We were all excited about her – and then we rang her up and she said yes on the spot, which was great because normally it’s a big old palaver.”
Finding a Prince Philip is proving more tricky, however, with Wimbledon star Paul Bettany having already turned it down. Speaking at a Bafta masterclass about the hit Netflix drama, Morgan said: “We’re going to really established actors now. You can’t to that, ‘Can you come in and mess around a bit’ thing. They’d tell me to shut up or get stuffed. So you have to make offers.” Vanessa Kirby, who plays Princess Margaret, said she had been involved in the selection of her successor, Helena Bonham Carter. “They always ask what we think,” she said. Executive producer Sue Mackie revealed not one cast member from the first two series would be used in the third and fourth. The third series of the Netflix hit will cover 1964 to 1976, when the Queen was in her 40s and 50s.