Olivia to be the new Queen
Olivia COlMaN will ascend the throne to portray the Queen in the next stage of the acclaimed television drama The Crown.
Claire Foy, 33, who won a Golden Globe for her portrait of Elizabeth ii in the first ten episodes of the series, finished shooting season two in the spring. it has always been clear that another actress would need to be contracted to play HM from (roughly) the age of 40 to 60 in series three and four.
Ms Colman, 43, will start filming the first of her ten episodes next year. But her reign won’t begin on Netflix until 2019.
Once Colman has completed her two series (20 episodes in total: one for each year), the producers and artistic team will search for a third actress to play Her Maj from 60 to 90 — assuming Netflix decides to go ahead with another tranche of the expensive dramas that explore the mystique of the world’s most visible, invisible woman.
Ms Colman, who herself won a Golden Globe this year for her role as spy runner angela Burr in The Night Manager, has been appearing in Mosquitoes at the National Theatre.
She has not yet signed a contract, but has agreed to take on the regal role.
it’s not Colman’s first rodeo with the royals. She portrayed our present Queen’s mother in the film Hyde Park On Hudson. it’s about when George vi and Queen Elizabeth visited President Franklin Roosevelt in 1939.
in addition, she plays Queen anne in The Favourite alongside Emma Stone and Rachel Weisz, directed by red-hot filmmaker Yorgos lanthimos.
From next Friday, you can also catch her in cinemas opposite Judi Dench in Kenneth Branagh’s all-star version of agatha Christie’s Murder On The Orient Express. Series two of The Crown starts on Netflix in December and paints an unflattering portrait of the Queen and Prince Philip’s marriage.
as played by Foy, she looks happiest on a state visit to Ghana, where she dances merrily with Kwame Nkrumah, The lion of africa.
and there’s a racy episode which explores Princess Margaret’s marriage to lord Snowdon (one scene even shows him engaging in some three-in-abed rumpy-pumpy!).