Jared Harris has a role fit for a king

Jared Harris tells Ed Power about starring in major new Netflix series The Crown, and wondering what his republican father, Richard Harris, would have made of it all

JARED Harris did not consider himself a natural candidate to play the King of England. The 55-year-old is the son of Richard Harris, the gadfly actor, proud Limerick man and avowed republican. Yet in Netflix’s $100m new British royalty drama The Crown, Harris the younger delvers a deeply sympathetic portrayal of George VI, Britain’s wartime regent and father of Elizabeth II. Richard might have been left speechless.

“My father was the opposite of all that,” Harris tells me. “He was nationalist, a republican, he believed in a unified Ireland and spoke very passionately about that.”

The Crown has been billed as Netflix’s foray into costume drama. With a script by Peter Morgan (The Queen, Frost v Nixon), and a pilot directed by Stephen Daldry (Billy Elliot, The Hours), its credentials are indeed first rate. The record budget — lavish even by Netflix standards —ensures, moreover, that it looks sumptuous too, every ruffled frock and tweed jacket tweaked for maximum authenticity.

Yet the series aspires to be more than merely Downtown Abbey 2.0. Across a mooted 10 seasons (the first two already green lit), The Crown will chronicle the life of Elizabeth II (Claire Foy), beginning in year one with her marriage to the caddish Philip Mountbatten (Dr Who’s Tom Smith).

BREAKTHROUGH ROLE

As both reluctant king and Elizabeth’s doting dad, Harris is a revelation. His biggest role up to this point was as an archetypal Brit in Manhattan in Mad Men (he was the posh chap who spoiled one of Don Draper’s boozy lunches by killing himself). With The Crown he finally, deep in middle age, has an opportunity to step beyond his father’s shadow.

His performance is all the more impressive considering George VI was brought to the screen in 2010 in The King’s Speech, with Colin Firth as the shy, stutter-afflicted royal who became a reluctant figurehead following the abdication of his older brother, King Edward.

Harris had seen the movie, which focused on George’s struggle to overcome his speech impediment and in which Elizabeth was a minor character. Was he required to unconsciously scrub from his memories all recollections of the earlier, Oscar-garlanded film?

“I took great solace from the fact that Colin Firth looked nothing like him and that didn’t upset people,” says Harris. “I look nothing like him either. The thing is, ours is a different story. The King’s Speech is about a man overcoming a personal millstone around his neck — this impediment which he feels makes him unfit to perform his functions. There is this idea that the monarch is supposed to be an idea of perfection. Every time he opens his mouth he destroyed that.

“We are doing something different. There is something about his relationship to power in The Crown, yes. More than that, we are exploring George as a family man. There is a very tight bond between the family.”

CHANGING WORLD

When Peter Morgan was writing season one of The Crown, Brexit was a smudge on the horizon. With Britain now set to depart the European Union, he feels the series has taken on a deeper resonance. It is the story of Elizabeth, but also of the UK during decades of upheaval.

“This is the amazing thing,” he says. “You write a show... and then the world changes and suddenly what you are writing becomes something different. Now that we have made this inexplicable decision to cut ourselves off — or at least for some people explicable, let’s not make a judgement call — we have made the decision 52 to 48 to go alone, and if we are going to go alone, isn’t it a good moment to look at who we are and what we are?”

Jared Harris, second from left, at Cork airport in 1965 with his father Richard, and the rest of his family.

He suspects that contemporary notions of ‘Britishness’ take their cues from Elizabeth — and that this played a part in the Brexit vote. A nostalgia for the UK of yesteryear is bound up in the public’s affection for their queen.

“A lot of, especially elderly people, in his country feel more connected to the Commonwealth. When you’ve a head of state whose natural centre of gravity is the Commonwealth, it is hard for us to think that the centre of gravity is Europe. I do think that plays a role.”

He initially feared the Brexit vote could damage The Crown. With the UK turning its back on the Continent, might viewers in Europe become hostile to this thoroughly British story?

“I wondered would these people think, ‘Well those Brits can go to hell, we don’t want to see the show’. It might work the other way. Now that we see how mad they are, or how eccentric their system is, maybe we understand better this island and the soul of the UK.”

Morgan has written about the royals before. The Queen (2006), directed by Stephen Frears from Morgan’s script, imagined the interaction between Elizabeth and Tony Blair in the days following Diana’s death. His 2013 play The Audience, meanwhile, looked at Elizabeth’s relationship with successive Prime Ministers.

A FEW SURPRISES

Nonetheless, delving into her early life for The Crown unearthed surprises. He was particularly struck by the young Philip, not at all the foot-in-mouth buffoon from The Queen.

“Philip was the biggest shock. Elizabeth is partly the person we see in public. She was always very contained, very responsible, very durable. Philip is whole lot of things we don’t see. “

He dismisses suggestions that The Crown is Netflix’s tilt at Downton Abbey. It’s a drama with costumes — not a costume drama.

“People keep mentioning Downton Abbey. They are seeing great British actors in frocks. But the second season, which we are shooting now, ends in 1964. We’re just a fraction away from [Prime Minister] Harold Wilson and then you’re into a completely different vibe. By 1976 you’ve got the Silver Jubilee and the Sex Pistols. This is something that is always evolving. I don’t think of it as a period show.”

• Season one of The Crown is on Netflix from today