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LOS ANGELES (AP) – For viewers, “The Crown” offers a glimpse into the life and times of a modern royal family, or at least some engaging dramatization. For the cast, that meant the noble equivalent of concert work as the Netflix series spans the decades.
Claire Foy played young British Queen Elizabeth II for the first two seasons, with Olivia Colman stepping in to chart her middle years last season and in Sunday’s 10 new episodes. Imelda Staunton ascends the throne for the last two chapters.
When Diana Spencer makes her pivotal entry this season, largely in the 1980s, it’s Emma Corrin in Josh O’Connor’s side opposite Prince Charles. Corrin’s job is one and done: Elizabeth Debicki takes over in seasons five and six as Princess Diana, destined for tragedy, facing a new Charles, who has yet to be announced.
A role in “The Crown” is akin to a relay race stick meant to be handed over, said Helena Bonham Carter, returning for her second whirlwind as Storm Princess Margaret. The actor is sandwiched between Vanessa Kirby (seasons one and two) and Lesley Manville, who will take Margaret across the finish line.
“I’m very sad it’s over, but it’s about time she got played by someone else at some point … She’s just a great gift of a role,” Bonham Carter said during from a joint interview with Colman and Tobias Menzies, back as Prince Philip.
Colman called Staunton’s cast “amazing,” then suggested the newcomer could outshine him. “It’s almost, ‘I wish she hadn’t been quite good,” she said with a smile. This prompted Bonham Carter to predict a star battle after the series ended.
“Rate your Margarets, rate your queens, rate your Philips,” she said, comparing it to fashion reviews of the celebrities who wore it best.
Colman was asked if she had any advice for her successor. His terse response: “Good luck. The wig stings.
“The Crown” casting director Robert Sterne said the actor swap was not predetermined when he started working with series creator and writer Peter Morgan.
It was an open question “if we have aged actors throughout their lives or if we were daring and chose every time,” Sterne said in an interview. Choosing the latter option meant a series of challenges and opportunities, for the show and its parade of actors.
“You spend a lot of time looking at photos and pictures of people at particular stages in their lives” to find the right actor to represent them at a particular stage in their life, he said. Then he used the relay race analogy citing another key stop.
“You also have to take into account how this previous actor described it. Who do you think can take this stick and run with it? he said, which he described as reinventing the role “but hopefully not in a jarring way.
Every move, especially a major change in cast, is essential for the popular series which reportedly cost over $ 100 million in its first two seasons alone.
The actors, including the illustrious, were happy to accept the questioning. Colman arrived at “The Crown” after winning an Oscar and other accolades for “The Favorite” of 2018, in which she played a much older British monarch, Queen Anne.
Staunton was Oscar nominated for “Vera Drake”; Manville for “Phantom Thread”; Bonham Carter for “The King’s Speech” and “The Wings of the Dove” and Jonathan Pryce, the future Prince Philip, for “The Two Popes”.
John Lithgow, another Oscar nominee and a rare American in predominantly British cast, had the role of political leader Winston Churchill all on his own and landed an Emmy Award for it.
Anyone playing the central role of Elizabeth is able to convey “an ordinary woman placed in extraordinary circumstances,” Sterne said of the queen portrayed in “The Crown”.
You need an actor “who can train you with it, make you feel for him and believe in reality.” They are all really extraordinary at that, ”he said. Foy won a 2018 Emmy for his performance.
There’s also room on the royal family tree for younger and less familiar talent, including Corrin and Erin Doherty, who plays the Queen’s fiery daughter, Princess Anne, and has proven to be a revelation.
“The actors will have this amazing connection with this character that you don’t see coming,” Sterne said. When Doherty auditioned, “she just had such a connection to this character. She had watched a lot of (Anne’s) YouTube videos and said, ‘I love this woman, I just know her, I think she’s awesome. ”
Doherty delivered in the essay and in the series with a “really excellent” performance, Sterne said.
The veteran cast member, who won three Emmys for his work on HBO’s “Game of Thrones” and a 2018 trophy for “The Crown,” found himself jumping into Corrin’s audition. She was put on the spot by famous writer Morgan (“The Queen”, “Frost / Nixon”) to sing “All I Ask of You” by Andrew Lloyd Webber.
Sterne called up a karaoke version on a computer and offered to sing along.
“She was blushing while doing it, and sang it in an absolutely beautiful way,” said Sterne. “It was incredibly sweet and sort of summed up the spirit of Diana that we were looking for… I was like, ‘Well, this part isn’t going anywhere else now.’ ‘
O’Connor said he enjoyed his time on the show, including saying goodbye to a role he knew wasn’t for good – just like with the works of Shakespeare.
“If you play Hamlet, you know that there are 100 people who have played Hamlet before you, there will be 100 people after you,” O’Connor said. “And they’ll all do it differently, and that’s the joy.”
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Lynn Elber can be reached at [email protected] and on Twitter at http://twitter.com/lynnelber.
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