Peter Morgan delved into the psyche of Queen Elizabeth II with The Queen, which earned Helen Mirren an Oscar for her portrayal of the British monarch after the death of Princess Diana. Ten years later, the screenwriter-playwright is bringing Elizabeth to the screen again, now going back further in time to the beginning of her reign, with Netflix series The Crown.
Here”s how Netflix is touting the series:
The Crown focuses on Queen Elizabeth II as a 25-year-old newlywed faced with the daunting prospect of leading the world”s most famous monarchy while forging a relationship with legendary Prime Minister, Sir Winston Churchill. The British Empire is in decline, the political world is in disarray, and a young woman takes the throne…. a new era is dawning. Peter Morgan's masterfully researched scripts reveal the Queen's private journey behind the public facade with daring frankness. Prepare to be welcomed into the coveted world of power and privilege and behind locked doors in Westminster and Buckingham Palace… the leaders of an empire await.
Claire Foy, who portrayed much shorter-lived British royalty Anne Boleyn in BBC”s Wolf Hall, is playing the young Elizabeth, and Doctor Who alum Matt Smith shares the screen with her as her husband, Prince Phillip. See how he handles the task of supporting his wife and queen, plus watch John Lithgow as Winston Churchill, in the new trailer below:
Dang. How much did we just glean about (at least, this interpretation of) Elizabeth and Phillip”s marriage from those glances shared between Foy and Smith?
With The Queen, along with Frost/Nixon, Morgan crafted intense, witty, eloquent views into history that illuminate the compelling and complex relationships between key historical figures. From the looks of this trailer, he”s doing that again, and I”m excited to see how he further delves into these relationships – between Elizabeth and her husband, Elizabeth and Churchill, Elizabeth and her sister – with a longer-form medium. The Crown has 10 one-hour episodes covering the first decade of Elizabeth”s time on the throne set to premiere on Netflix on Friday, November 4 (so we can all get transported to England 60 years ago while we”re trying not to wring our hands over what”s going to happen a few days later in 2016 America).