The Best Movies And Shows Starring The Crown Season 5 Cast That You Need To See
Season 5 of "The Crown" couldn't premiere at a more peculiar time. New episodes arrive on Netflix on November 9, slightly over two months since the death of Queen Elizabeth II and the resulting months of turmoil in the British Parliament. According to Vanity Fair, this upcoming season will cover 1991-1997. Notably, 1992 is the year the Queen referred to as "annus horribilis" as a fire broke out in Windsor Castle, and the royal family saw the dissolution of three marriages, including the infamous "War of the Waleses" — a public battle between the future King Charles III and his ex-wife, Diana. However, "The Crown" will not depict the death of Princess Diana in its newest season. The Netflix series will cover that event in its sixth and final season.
In what is now an established pattern, season 5 will usher in a brand new cast to play older versions of the royals we've come to know and love. While some roles will spotlight newcomers like Rufus Kampa and Ed McVey (who both play Prince William), season 5 will be a star-studded affair helmed by actors with impressive resumes. Previous seasons of "The Crown" saw a surge in viewership after the Queen's death. There's no doubt season 5 will be equally popular. For those desperately waiting for the new episodes to drop, check out the below list of movies and television shows featuring the new cast of "The Crown."
Imelda Staunton in Vera Drake
Debuting a new portrayal of an internationally renowned woman two months after her death is a formidable challenge. Award-winning actress Imelda Staunton described what it was like filming after her death to ET, stating, "Everyone was extremely sad, and I know I was very inconsolable that evening," she said. "My reaction surprised me. Of course, I would feel something. But having lived with her very closely for two years, it felt strange." While portraying the longest ruling monarch in British history, Staunton developed a deep admiration for the woman, telling Deadline, "Here we were, celebrating, when she died, a woman with her own face; who let her hair go gray, and never had to change with the times and impress anyone."
Staunton won international acclaim for her portrayal of Vera Drake in Mike Leigh's 2004 film. As the main character in "Vera Drake," Staunton portrays an amalgamation of the women secretly providing illegal abortions in 1950s-era London. Staunton's Vera is an altruistic house cleaner who cares for her patients out of the goodness of her heart — though many critics argued that these real-life abortionists were not so charitable and their methods much more dangerous than depicted in the film. Set in the 1950s under the early rule of Queen Elizabeth II, "Vera Drake" may seem like a relic, but the recent overturn of Roe v. Wade in the U.S. makes this story more prescient than ever.
Jonathan Pryce in Tomorrow Never Dies
Since the debut episode of "The Crown," Prince Philip (Matt Smith) has been one of its most fascinatingly complex characters. Smith's portrayal shows the young naval officer as a man deeply conflicted with his role as a father and being married to a world-famous wife. Later in the series, Tobias Menzies continues adding depth to Philip — showcasing his struggle to find his place in a globalized world. As Buckingham Palace's resident wild card, Pryce will be playing a cantankerous version of the character. "His life was completely turned around when his wife did become queen because not only was his past cut off, but his future was cut off, in a way," he told Deadline.
In 1993, Pryce played another thorn in the side of Her Majesty's Secret Service as Elliot Carver, the central villain in the 18th James Bond film, "Tomorrow Never Dies." Carver is a media mogul who orchestrates tragedies on a grand scale so that his paper, "Tomorrow," can earn higher ratings. Although it's a stretch to call Prince Philip a villain in "The Crown," there's no doubt he and Carver have caused considerable stress for the monarchy and the British government. In a political landscape dominated by media spin, alternative facts, and sensational headlines, the film has aged well and as an eerie reflection of reality than Pryce's portrayal of the royal husband.
Lesley Manville in Phantom Thread
The final two seasons of "The Crown" will see Leslie Manville step in to portray Princess Margaret, Queen Elizabeth's younger sister. Circling the same social scene in the 1980s, the actress remembers nearly missing an opportunity to see the party girl princess play drums at Mick Jagger's house. Following in the footsteps of Vanessa Kirby and Helena Bonham Carter, Manville will inhabit the role during a more subdued period of the Princess' life. "I suppose I'm playing her at a time [when] she was a bit lonelier," she told Deadline. "She's no longer married, she no longer has a partner. What I gathered from my reading and researching, was that she entered this part of her life and there was a real intention to serve her sister a bit more."
After nearly five decades in film and television, Manville received an Academy Award nomination for her role in "Phantom Thread." She portrays another sister standing in the shadows of a famous sibling: Cyril Woodcock, sister to renowned fashion designer Reynolds Woodcock (Daniel Day-Lewis). In a reversal of her role as Margert, Cyril is the more stable sibling, holding together the family business as her difficult but talented brother amuses himself with extravagant designs and his latest muse.
Elizabeth Debicki in Widows
The major draw of "The Crown” season 5 is undoubtedly its depiction of the final years of Princess Diana's life. Taking over for Emma Corrin, Elizabeth Debicki will play the English Rose in some of the most tumultuous years of her life. Season 5 will focus on the public dissolution of her marriage to the future King Charles III (Dominic West). On wearing the famous Revenge Dress, Debicki recounts feeling incredibly powerful. "I can't really explain it," she told EW. "It's pretty incredible that a dress would represent a moment in history, or that this human's life would represent so much and become so iconic. So that was a big day on set for me!"
In Steve McQueen's 2018 film "Widows," Debicki portrays Alice, a recent widow, who commits to a high-stakes heist to repay her late husband's debts. The film received rave reviews from critics with GQ magazine describing Debicki's performance as a "remarkable breakout" role. The Australian actress describes her character's superpower as empathy and told the outlet, "She realizes the objectification that she endures in everyday life can be the asset. She can literally manipulate it to her advantage, rather than it being the thing that constantly oppresses her." There's no doubt this role about a powerful woman who grows stronger after the end of her abusive marriage prepared her to play Diana.
Dominic West in The Affair
If "The Crown" has anything close to a villain, it's the former Prince of Wales, Charles. Showrunner Peter Morgan's narrative depicts him as an emotionally abusive and jealous monster whose ongoing affair with Camilla Parker-Boles (Olivia Williams) nearly destroys Princess Diana's life. Season 5 will further explore this affair, including the intimate exchange known as "Tampongate." West described how the cringe phone recording helped him find sympathy for Charles to EW, stating, "What you're conscious of is that the blame was not with these two people, two lovers, who were having a private conversation. What's really [clear now] is how invasive and disgusting the press's attention was to it, that they printed it out verbatim and you could call a number and listen to the actual tape. I think it made me extremely sympathetic towards the two of them and what they'd gone through."
The British actor has an impressive resume, including a role on HBO's acclaimed drama "The Wire" — another role that dovetails well with his portrayal of King Charles III. But West's Noah Soloway in Showtime's scandalous "The Affair" is a perfect pairing with "The Crown." The Showtime series explores the wide-ranging ramifications of an extra-marital relationship. Playing with different perspectives, the show gives audiences a devastating look at the ripple effects of infidelity that eerily mimics West's upcoming performance in "The Crown."
Olivia Williams in The Sixth Sense
Playing one of the most infamous "other women" in history is incredibly challenging. In "The Crown" season 5, Olivia Willaims will take over for Emerald Fennel as the future Queen Consort, Camilla Parker-Bowles. Though Charles comes across as fairly cruel, showrunner Peter Morgan has also shown that Camilla and Charles' romance began well before his doomed marriage to Diana. As Willaims puts it, "'Maybe now we see that [Charles and Diana's] marriage wasn't a great idea in the first place."
This is not the first time Williams has portrayed a woman in a relationship with an unavailable man. In M. Night Shyamalan's massive horror hit, "The Sixth Sense," she plays Anna Crowe, wife to Bruce Willis' Malcomb. She's a child psychologist who takes the case of a young boy who sees dead people. (If you've somehow managed to avoid the film's infamous final act twist, skip ahead to the next slide!)
For the majority of the film, we watch Anna ignore her husband and wonder what he could have done to cause her indifference. But in the final scene, we learn Malcomb has been dead since the film's opening and is only visible to Cole. She has not been ignoring him: She's grieving her murdered husband. Like Anna, it's hard to not imagine Camilla torn over being unable to be with the man she loves.
Jonny Lee Miller in Trainspotting and T2 Trainspotting
In addition to the controversy over the depiction of Princess Diana's final years, another shadow looming over the season 5 premiere of "The Crown" involves Johnny Lee Miller's role as former Prime Minister Sir John Major. Much of the show's drama has featured the Queen's weekly audiences with people like the Prime Minister from Winston Churchill (John Lithgow) and Margaret Thatcher (Gillian Anderson).
While Anderson and Lithgow won Primetime Emmys for these performances, neither has sparked so much attention as Miller's portrayal. A season 5 story reportedly involves a surreptitious plot between Major and Charles to force the abdication of his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, so he'll ascend the throne early. Major vehemently denied the veracity of these scenes, proclaiming them a "barrel load of malicious nonsense" — even calling for a boycott of the show.
This is not the first time Miller has been involved in a controversial project. He played Simon "Sick Boy" Williamson, a young person living with a substance abuse disorder, in Danny Boyle's breakout hit "Trainspotting." The ground-breaking film received widespread acclaim, but an equal amount of controversy amidst claims that it glamorizes drug use. The Sean Connery-impersonating con man, Sick Boy, returned in "T2 Trainspotting," a sequel Miller described as "comedic in places and then extremely moving in others."
If you or anyone you know needs help with addiction issues, help is available. Visit the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration website or contact SAMHSA's National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357).
Bertie Carvel in The Tragedy of MacBeth
The second Prime Minister to appear in season 5 of "The Crown ” will be one more familiar to American audiences. Tony Blair was elected Prime Minister in 1997, three months before the death of Princess Diana. The upcoming season of "The Crown" will likely focus on Blair's time as leader of the Labour Party before moving into 10 Downing Street. Despite bringing to life these significant moments in history, Bertie Carvel told Radio Times, "Actors are a different kind of truthtellers from historians or journalists. Asking if 'The Crown' is accurate really misses the point, and is slightly patronizing to audiences. We're not making a documentary."
The London-born actor has an extensive resume on stage and screen but featured prominently in Joel Coen's gorgeous reimagining of Shakespeare's Scottish play, "The Tragedy of Macbeth." Carvel portrays Banquo, Macbeth's friend and partner in battle, who also witnesses the fateful prophecy given to Macbeth. He becomes the second victim of the increasingly dangerous King and later appears to his former friend in a guilt-ridden vision. Carvel also played an unrelated role in a season 2 episode of "The Crown" as Robin Day, an outspoken reporter critical of the queen. Though the situations differ significantly, Carvel has now played three separate roles on the periphery of the monarchy — for better or worse.
Claudia Harrison in The Cat's Meow
While most of season 5's focus will be on Charles and Diana's formal separation in 1992, theirs was not the only royal marriage to fall apart in that year. In 1992, Princess Anne and her husband of nearly 20 years, Captain Mark Phillips, also divorced. Season 4 foreshadowed this future split when Anne (Erin Doherty) described her unhappy marriage to her mother. Likely, season 5 will finally see Anne reach her breaking point.
Despite the stress in her character's future, Claudia Harrison, who will take over the role from Doherty, had an exceedingly flattering description of the famously blunt Princess. Harrison told Town and Country, "Anne's an extraordinary character... She's not there to make people feel better about themselves, but she is superb at her job and is a proper feminist. She's someone we can really look up to and I think she has no sense of entitlement."
In 2001, Harrison appeared in the fictionalized account of another ill-fated romance. Peter Bogdanovich's "The Cat's Meow" chronicles a mysterious death occurring on the yacht of legendary newspaperman William Randolph Hearst during a weekend birthday excursion in 1924. Harrison portrays Margaret Livingston, a silent film era actress and businesswoman, invited to the party. However, she soon finds herself witnessing a murderous love triangle.
James Murray in 6 Underground
The Queen's third child, Prince Andrew, has fueled the lion's share of the royal family's drama in recent years. After being accused by Virginia Giuffre of sexual assault as part of Jeffrey Epstein's ring of sex trafficking, the disgraced royal reportedly settled out of court for an undisclosed amount. The fictional representation of Prince Andrew featured on season 5 of "The Crown" will also be enmeshed in turmoil as the third child of Queen Elizabeth II to separate from a spouse in 1992.
Taking over for Tom Byrne, British actor James Murray has tried to remain impartial about his notorious character, stating "If I'm being professional, it's not really my job to feel too much, to judge the character... We're in the 1990s, before all the things that we know now. I just have to read what's on the page, do my research, and play that quasi-fictional character" (via Tatler).
Murray plays a less scandalous brother to a powerful leader in "6 Underground." The Netflix original film stars Ryan Reynolds as One, an American billionaire who fakes his death and forms an elite vigilante team to take down international criminals too slippery for government agencies. Directed by Michael Bay, the bombastic film had a $150 million budget. Murray has a small role as Caleb, the brother of One, faring much better than the real-life brother of King Charles III.
If you or anyone you know has been a victim of sexual assault, help is available. Visit the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network website or contact RAINN's National Helpline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673).
Khalid Abdalla in The Kite Runner
In the wake of Diana's public separation from then-Prince Charles, season 5 of the Crown will reportedly introduce new love interests for the People's Princess, including Egyptian heir Dodi Al-Fayed. Son of the billionaire Mohamed Al-Fayed, Dodi had a summer romance with Diana in 1997 that ended with their tragic deaths in a road accident in Paris. Egyptian-British actor Khalid Abdalla will portray the billionaire playboy in 10 episodes. Since Diana's death won't happen in season 5, his character arc will likely span across the series' two remaining seasons
Abdalla's breakout role came in 2007 with the film adaptation of Khaled Hosseini's best-selling novel "The Kite Runner." The story follows Amir, a boy from Kabul who grows up against the fall of the Afghan Monarchy and the rise of the Taliban. Abdalla received positive reviews for his portrayal of an adult Amir and the film has been praised for its authenticity.
The film faced controversy due to an upsetting sequence involving the rape of a child. Many feared this scene would put the child actors and their families in danger in their home country of Afghanistan. Director Marc Forster claimed to have no idea the film would prove dangerous to the boys and subsequently did everything within his power to protect his actors. Afghanistan banned the film, and the child actors and families moved for their protection.
If you or anyone you know has been a victim of sexual assault, help is available. Visit the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network website or contact RAINN's National Helpline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673).
Andrew Havill in Censor
While following the inner workings of Buckingham Palace, "The Crown" has shown several private secretaries working for the royal family, but none with competing loyalties quite like Robert Fellowes. As the private secretary to Queen Elizabeth II from 1990-1999, Fellowes managed the Queen's royal tasks and daily responsibilities during some of the most chaotic years of her life.
While this job would be stressful enough, Fellowes was also the husband of Lady Jane Fellowes, the older sister of Princess Diana. In the aftermath of Diana's death, Fellowes was accused of a now-debunked plot to kill the Princess. He and his wife were asked to testify at the official Inquest. Despite this conflict of interest, Fellowes was known as an exceedingly kind man and reportedly got on well with the Princess of Wales.
Andrew Havill, known for his roles in "Downton Abbey” and "The King," portrays Fellowes. However, his role in Prano Bailey-Bond's "Censor" has a more interesting connection to his portrayal of the tight-lipped assistant. Havill plays George, father to Enid, who works as a film censor during England's "Video Nasty" controversy. Having lost his other daughter, George refuses to believe Enid's claim that a horror film she's reviewing stars a woman who could be her sister. This role in the mind-bending horror film allowed Havvill to explore a different element of a British scandal involving a horrific and mysterious death.
Natascha McElhone in The Truman Show
Since the royal wedding in its first episode, "The Crown" has heavily focused on the relationship between Queen Elizabeth II and her husband, Prince Philip. Season 5 brings another woman into the picture, Penny Knatchbull, often called the "second-most important woman in the Duke of Edinburgh's life." Married to Prince Philip's godson, Penny became a close confidant to His Royal Highness in his final years and a member of the royal family's inner circle. However, Penny's relationship with the Queen and her husband is a bit of a mystery. With such explosive years for season 5 to explore, we'll likely see the Prince lean on his much younger best friend.
The British actress Natascha McElhone, known for her roles in "Ronin" and Steven Soderbergh's remake of the sci-fi classic "Solaris," will play Penny. McElhone plays another mysterious woman in the 1998 hit "The Truman Show." The comedy follows Truman Burbank (Jim Carrey), a man unknowingly raised from birth in a closed environment with every detail of his life meticulously controlled for reality TV. McElhone plays the young woman Lauren, cast as a love interest for Truman. But she later tries to tell him the truth about his artificial life. As Penny, McElhone will play another woman providing a crucial element of grounding reality to a man who feels trapped by the constraints of his elaborately controlled life.
Timothy Dalton in The Living Daylights and License to Kill
The official trailer for "The Crown" season 5 contains a glimpse of the joyful reunion fans have been waiting to see since season 1's heartbreaking finale. We see Princess Margaret dancing with Group Captain Peter Townsend, the man the Queen forbade her to marry due to his previous divorce. He's often called the lost love of her life. In real life, Peter and Margaret had a chance to meet at an event at Kensington Palace three years before his death, and this is likely the scene we'll see in the upcoming season. Timothy Dalton, best known for sweeping women off their feet as James Bond, will portray Townsend.
Previously, Dalton starred in "The Living Daylights" and "License to Kill." Both films represent traditional and modern interpretations of the debonair spy. "The Living Daylights" is the more conventional Bond film with a distinctly 80s plot and a by-the-numbers romance. "License to Kill" is a much more violent movie, a harbinger of the brutality we would see in the Daniel Craig years. Season 5 of "The Crown" promises to be filled with scandal and turmoil. Given the joyful look on the would-be couple's faces as they stare into each other's eyes, a recreation of this reunion will likely be a welcomed moment.