We’ll be sad to see Claire Foy go at the end of the next season of The Crown, but we couldn’t be happier at today’s news (October 27) about who’ll replace her.
Variety reports that none other than Olivia Colman is next in line to the throne, by which we mean will be the next actress to play Queen Elizabeth II in Netflix’s epic series.
We’ve known this regeneration was in the works for a while. Series creator Peter Morgan has explained they’d be replacing key cast members after season two, which is due to start this December and cover the period 1956-63.
The reason? Well, the series will apparently last 60 episodes over the course of six seasons, so expecting the same actress to play a role for what might be six or seven years is asking a lot.
Not only that, but by the third and fourth seasons the queen will be in forties and fifties, and as wonderful an actress as Claire is, we think playing someone 20 years older than her might be a stretch. We hope it’s not unchivalrous to suggest Olivia will make the perfect successor, as Queen Elizabeth faces the Swinging Sixties and the comparatively dour 1970s.
Olivia’s casting answers one question — who’ll play Lizzie in the next two-season block? But it prompts even more. For instance, what about her third incarnation in the fifth and sixth seasons? Dame Judi, perhaps? Or will we come full circle, and see Dame Helen Mirren reprise the role she played so beautifully in The Queen?
And then there’s her husband Prince Philip, currently played by TARDIS resident no.11, Matt Smith. Who will replace him when Olivia replaces Claire? Ooh, did someone say “David Tennant“? Do we smell a Broadchurch reunion in the works?
Okay, so that last one might be wishful thinking, but it’s fun guessing who it could be anyway.
Can you think of a more perfect casting than Olivia?