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2019
thought, ‘It’s quite interesting to do a young queen, a
middle-aged queen, and an old queen,’ ” he says. “Origi-
nally, when I went to Netflix, I was pitching it as three
seasons. It just kept growing.” Morgan says he had
enough material to have “easily” written three seasons
starring Foy’s young queen, but he’s glad he kept it to
two before changing casts. “By the time we got to the
end with Claire and Matt, I think they were ready to go
somewhere else,” he explains.
Of course, this wouldn’t be a royal-family story
without some scandal. In March of last year, Variety
reported that two Crown executive producers let slip at
a conference in Jerusalem that Smith was paid more
than Foy. Although one of the EPs, Suzanne Mackie,
insisted that “Going forward, no one gets paid more
than the Queen,” the news became a huge story. At the
time, Foy told EW, “I’m surprised, because I’m at the
center of it, and anything that I’m at the center of like
that is very, very odd. But I’m not [surprised about the
interest in the story] in the sense that it was a female-
led drama. I’m not surprised that people saw [the story]
and went, ‘Oh, that’s a bit odd.’ ”
By then, Netflix had announced
the casting of Colman, whom Mor-
gan regarded as essential to the
show’s future. “Olivia Colman was a
list of one,” he says. “I think I
wanted to know [she would play the
part] even before negotiations were
done for seasons 3 and 4.” The only
problem with casting Colman? Her
performance as Queen Anne in The
Favourite would hit big screens
before her turn as Queen Elizabeth
arrived on small ones. “Obviously
T O P
BEN DANIELS
AND BONHAM
CARTER
L E F T
DANIELS (AS LORD
SNOWDEN), MARION
BAILEY (AS THE
QUEEN MOTHER),
BONHAM CARTER,
COLMAN, MENZIES,
ERIN DOHERTY (AS
PRINCESS ANNE),
AND CHARLES
DANCE; JOSH
O’CONNOR (AS
PRINCE CHARLES)
COUNTERPARTS
THE
REAL
-LIFE
R
O
Y
A
LS
AND THEIR
REAL
LIFE
SEASONS
1 + 2
SEASON
3
QUEEN
ELIZABETH II
OLIVIA
COLMAN
CLAIRE
FOY
PRINCE
PHILIP
TOBIAS
MENZIES
M AT T
SMITH
PRINCESS
MARGARET
HELENA
BONHAM
CARTER
VANESSA
KIRBY
ANTONY
ARMSTRONG-
JONES
BEN
DANIELS
MATTHEW
GOODE
THE QUEEN
MOTHER
MARION
BAILEY
VICTORIA
HAMILTON
LORD
MOUNTBATTEN
CHARLES
DANCE
GREG
WISE
→ →
→ →
→ →
→ →
→ →
→ →
QUEEN ELIZABETH II: GETTY IMAGES/FOX PHOTOS; FOY: MATT WINKELMEYER/GETTY IMAGES FOR INSTYLE; COLMAN: SOPA IMAGES/LIGHTROCKET VIA GETTY IMAGES; PHILIP: HULTON ARCHIVE/GETTY IMAGES; SMITH: JIM SPELLMAN/WIREIMAGE; MENZIES: JEFF SPICER/GETTY IMAGES; PRINCESS MARGARET: HULTON DEUTSCH/CORBIS VIA GETTY IMAGES; KIRBY: CINDY ORD/GETTY IMAGES FOR TORY BURCH; BONHAM CARTER: JAMIE MCCARTHY/GETTY IMAGES; ARMSTRONG-JONES: BETTMANN ARCHIVE; GOODE: BEN BIRCHALL/PA IMAGES VIA GETTY IMAGES; DANIELS: ALBERTO REYES/SHUTTERSTOCK; QUEEN MOTHER: PA IMAGES VIA GETTY IMAGES; HAMILTON: DAVID M. BENETT/GETTY IMAGES; BAILEY: SHIRLAINE FORREST/GETTY IMAGES; LORD MOUNTBATTEN: TIM GRAHAM/GETTY IMAGES; WISE: PAUL ARCHULETA/FILMMAGIC; DANCE: JEFF KRAVITZ/FILMMAGIC FOR HBO
