Here's your first look at the fifth series of The Crown
Elizabeth Debicki as Diana, Princess of Wales, Dominic West as Charles, Teddy Hawley as Prince Harry and Timothee Sambor as Prince William, from season five of The Crown. Picture: Keith Bernstein/Netflix
We're up to the 90s so fans of this hit series dramatising the story of Britain's Queen Elizabeth II and her family will remember a lot of the featured events actually happening in real life.
The 1990s was the decade in which the Queen had a particularly tough year — she said herself: "1992 is not a year on which I shall look back with undiluted pleasure. In the words of one of my more sympathetic correspondents, it has turned out to be an annus horribilis".
In season 5 of The Crown, the role of Diana, who died in August 1997, is played by Elizabeth Debicki. And Dominic West enjoys a rather different world to the drug dealing and mean streets of Baltimore and The Wire as he plays Prince Charles.
Elizabeth Debicki says: “That's the amazing thing about playing these people at this time, because in the journey of The Crown so far out of all the seasons, this is the most visual content we have of the Royal Family. In the 90s everything had started to be filmed and also it was the birth of the 24-hour news cycle so there's just this incredible amount of content that we have access to.”
Dominic West has acknowledged the complexity of playing a living character with whom many people are familiar: “I think people understand, because the cast has changed every two seasons, that this is not an imitation. This is an evoking of a character.”
And Imelda Staunton (Queen Elizabeth II) hopes that, like her character, she has done her duty to the audience: “What has been nice, and I hope I don't prove them wrong, is people saying, ‘I'm really looking forward to seeing her as the queen'. So, let's just hope that works out for them because I've done it. Nothing I can do about it now!”
was due to end after the fifth series, but the show's creator and writer Peter Morgan later said it will be extended to include a sixth series.
Filming on this series of halted as a mark of respect after the Queen's death. And filming was also suspended on the day of her funeral.
Other characters in season 5 of include:
- Jonathan Pryce as Prince Philip
- Lesley Manville as Princess Margaret
- Claudia Harrison as Princess Anne
- Olivia Williams as Camilla Parker Bowles
- Jonny Lee Miller takes on the role of John Major
- Salim Daw is Mohamed Al Fayed
- Khalid Abdalla is Dodi Fayed
- Teddy Hawley is Prince Harry
- and Timothee Sambor is Prince William.
- Will Powell and Senan West will take on the roles of Prince Harry and Prince William respectively in later episodes).
