The Cast of ‘The Crown’ Discusses the Drama of the Award-Winning Series’ Fifth Season

The long-awaited fifth season of The Crown has finally arrived!

With this new season comes a new cast portraying the royal family in the fast-changing world of the 90s. The cast, including Imelda Staunton, Jonathan Pryce, Lesley Manville, Dominic West, Elizabeth Debicki, and Jonny Lee Miller, gathered on the eve of the Season 5 premiere to discuss what it’s like to play these larger-than-life characters and the larger-than-life drama that defines the season.

At the virtual press conference moderated by Edith Bowman, host of The Crown: The Official Podcast, the actors talked about the dedicated team behind the camera, what went into researching their roles, and the responsibility of portraying real-life people on an established, Emmy-winning series.

The cast could not stress more about the importance of collaboration and teamwork. The support they received from every department, the extensive archives, and from one another proved to be invaluable.

“It helps that we are all new,” stated Pryce who takes over from Tobias Menzies, with Matt Smith before him, in the role of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. “We get that sense of support from each other.”

Hair, makeup, and costuming provide a wealth of researched insight from which the actors could draw. “You start out and you’re on your own,” explained Manville, who steps into the shoes of Princess Margaret, following performances by Vanessa Kirby in the first two seasons and Helena Bonham Carter in Seasons 3 and 4.

“You’ve got this character to create and the baton is being passed on. You do all that homework by yourself, and then all of those layers get put on from those brilliant departments. For me, I could start to see Margaret when I started to work with hair and makeup and wardrobe.”

The level of the production’s dedication to detail impressed Staunton who takes on the crown of Queen Elizabeth II for Seasons 5 and 6 after Claire Foy and Olivia Colman. “The detail that went into giving me breakfast was absolutely extraordinary. It’s absolutely got to be to the nth degree correct,” she stressed. “I’ve never done anything where that is such an important factor.”

“But, of course, these are people that the world knows,” continued Staunton. “We often play people who’ve been invented, so there’s that responsibility. Sid [Sidonie Roberts] and Amy [Roberts], and Cate [Hall] with makeup, they’ve been doing it all this time. They know how to be restrained.”

West spoke to that restraint in terms of working with the movement coach for his portrayal of Prince Charles, previously played by Josh O’Connor on Seasons 3 and 4. Shaking hands, for example, “Charles doesn’t reach out,” West explained. “I kept being told, ‘you’re the future king, they have to come to him.’ It’s not outward,” he said. “Everything is very much contained.”

Miller is not taking over a previously inhabited character on The Crown but that of John Major, Britain’s Prime Minister for most of the decade in which Season 5 takes place.

“We worked on a walk,” he revealed. “Which I don’t think we get to see too much walking around, which is a bit of a disappointment,” Miller added, laughing.

“I had read in his autobiography about a bad car crash he had gotten into in Africa and his knee had not healed, so we looked at that and it kind of informed how he walked. All of that stuff is super interesting — the little tips and all of a sudden you feel like a proper actor.”

As the iconic Lady Diana, Debicki sought similar gestures to study from the production’s vast archive. “It’s really a deep dive, that archive, so we have access to all these little snippets,” Debicki described. “For me, it’s all these little archive snippets of footage that never made it to the news. There’s no voice over it, there’s no agenda to it. It’s just raw footage of people.”

She further expounded, “For me as an actor, looking at how to access the character is in the little off moments, like how somebody opens the car door, why they’re doing something with their body. The physical language was fascinating for me.”

The physicality can inform the inner emotional worlds of these real-life people. “That’s what you try to do,” said Staunton, “whether it works or not. That’s a wonderful acting exercise. There are days I think I might have got it, and then days I absolutely haven’t got it and I’ll try again tomorrow,” the actor admitted.

“It’s hard,” she continued, “but when you’ve got the writing there that does probably about 80%, if not more, of the work, the challenge is getting the audience to come inside, hopefully, and see what you’re feeling without showing what you’re feeling. This family, apart from John Major and Diana, we are locked, we are confined with our behavior. But what Peter Morgan is trying to do is give us a life inside that confinement and that’s really satisfying to try and investigate.”

Debicki, who succeeds Emma Corrin as Diana, expanded on this. “It took me some time to understand that you’re bringing your interpretation to Peter’s interpretation of this person. Then people watching the show come with such attachment and memory and a sense of ownership, too, over these characters in a way. Not only from the people who’ve played them before but also from their living memory and their history,” she stated.

“You have to leave a space for that. It’s a sort of dance between all those things. It’s a beautiful process, but it’s also very challenging.”

For Lesley Manville and Princess Margaret, there’s a literal dance on their journey for Season 5. “Timothy Dalton comes into Episode 4 to play Peter Townsend who was Margaret’s erstwhile love. It’s a very good device on Peter Morgan’s behalf because I think it can be interpreted through my research and through what Peter’s written.”

Manville describes this period for Margaret as “a lonely chapter of her life and transitioning into an older phase, which for her is difficult because she’s been so glamorous and iconic. How do you marry all of that with this odd life on your own?”

She went on to relate this to her scenes with Dalton. “It serves a great purpose of highlighting maybe what she could’ve had, hasn’t had, and now doesn’t have at all. Those scenes are very charming. And she gets quite animated and sparky and fiery and fun with him again, so it’s nice to tap into that side of Margaret in that episode.”

“When the public watches a royal event,” Manville illustrated, “you have to imagine how they are feeling at this point. And the great thing about our scripts is it can absolutely, with a microscope, hone in on what any of these characters are feeling. They come to these events with their own stories going on. Their own lives are still ticking away underneath. It’s great to be able to tell the really personal and private stories about these people and to humanize them in that way.” 

“As a viewer and a fan of the show,” offered Miller, “that’s what Peter does so generously and empathetically and with real class. And that’s what I think the audience has always connected with about the show. It’s about as Lesley says, humanizing these people, and therefore understanding what that life might’ve been like or is like. More understanding is just better in general.”

Staunton went on to say, “We’re looking at their lives when it was very difficult. As an actor you have more to do and therefore it’s extremely satisfying, and it’s dramatic. This is a drama,” she stressed. “And Peter Morgan writes great drama. He bases it around events and real people but he gives them heart, soul, brains, all that stuff.”

“It’s not dramatic being nice and easy,” she added. “It’s dramatic when things start to go wrong and how these people deal with those difficulties. He investigates all of that and we get to do that journey.”

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The Crown Season 5 is currently streaming on Netflix.

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