Every two seasons The Crown changes its cast completely, despite the number of awards, praise and more that the interpreters of two generations have taken. Peter Morgan, the creator of the series, had commented since before the premiere of season 1 that this would happen. Although for many this does not make much sense and they even become fond of the actors and actresses who star in the Netflix series, the director has good reason for doing this.
Morgan is an experienced filmmaker who has been behind other season portraits and royalty, such as Frost / Nixon or The Queen, but without a doubt, The Crown is the jewel in his crown and for that reason, he has taken care of it in many respects since he conceived it. His decision from the beginning was to have new faces every two seasons to cover a much longer period of time and not be limited to telling only part of the story of Queen Elizabeth II and the British royal family.
The above means that, if it had only had a few protagonists for the six seasons, at some point it would have had to use makeup (perhaps excessive) to age interpreters like Claire Foy or Matt Smith (stellar in the first two installments) and this it would look unnatural in the eyes of Peter Morgan, so he prefers to make the change of actors and actresses to be able to work with them in a more natural way and according to their ages since he is not in favor of using special effects to make it seem older interpreters.
“I feel like when we got to 1963-64 we went as far as we could with Claire Foy without having to do silly things in terms of makeup to make her look older. She can’t help the fact that she’s so young, ”Peter mentioned to Screen Daily about his decision, which at the time was highly questioned, to remove Claire Foy and company to make way for Olivia Colman and the rest of the cast members. from season 3 of The Crown.
However, despite the doubts that it generated in the first transition, the truth is that the casting process has been so meticulous and successful that the faces that arrive have more than filled the shoes of the characters they take over and proof of this is that both Claire Foy and Olivia Colman have won Golden Globes for their respective interpretations of Queen Elizabeth II, proving that the decision to change the cast has been risky, but functional.
So in season 5 and 6 of The Crown several actors and actresses will arrive to take over the main characters and there are already some confirmed: Imelda Staunton as Queen Elizabeth II; Jonathan Pryce as Prince Philip; Lesley Manville as Princess Margaret; Elizabeth Debicki as the Princess of Wales; and Dominic West is rumored as Prince Charles, so there is an expectation about what they will do with their roles.
