JUST FINISHED WATCHING: THE CROWN (2016–2023)

Follows the political rivalries and romances of Queen Elizabeth II's reign and the events that shaped Britain for the second half of the 20th century.

TRIVIA: Queen Elizabeth II had blue eyes, like her first portrayer Claire Foy. After Olivia Colman was cast as Elizabeth she was tested with blue contact lenses over her brown eyes, but it was decided they negatively affected her performance. Changing her eye color in postproduction was also tested, but according to the producers "it didn't feel like her. CGI-ing her eyes seemed to diminish what she was doing." Eventually it was decided to accept the continuity error.

The iconic black door of 10 Downing Street had to be made larger in scale so that John Lithgow, who is 6' 4'' (1,93m) in height, would not look significantly larger than the real-life Sir Winston Churchill, who, at this stage was around 5' 6'' (1,67m) tall.

The series is one of the most expensive television series ever made. Each episode is budgeted at £5 million and it had already been commissioned for two seasons, with the intention of four more, before the first episode had even been completed, or any episode broadcast.

For his role as Sir Winston Churchill, John Lithgow's dialect coach was William Conacher, who also had to coach the other mostly British cast because of subtle changes in English accents over the decades. Lithgow actually stuffed cotton in his nostrils in order to capture the faint nasal timbre of Churchill's intonations, while a dialect evolutionist was on set to monitor the accuracy of accents over the time span of the series. It was noted, for example, that Queen Elizabeth II's pronunciation of vowels during the 1950s differs enormously from the way her grandson Prince Harry speaks today.

Coincidentally Helena Bonham Carter's uncle, Mark Bonham-Carter, briefly dated Princess Margaret, the very character Helena portrays in Seasons 3 and 4 of the series.

The coronation dress worn is a replica that was originally commissioned by Harrods for a celebratory window display in 2012 for the Queen's jubilee. The dress was made and is owned by Angels Costumes from whom they hired many of the costumes for the series. Despite being made to a mannequin size, Claire Foy fit the dress perfectly and was the first person to ever wear it.

Elizabeth's granddaughter Princess Eugenie is a self-professed fan of the series.

During a panel discussion at the 2018 INTV Conference in Jerusalem, producers of the show admitted that Claire Foy (Queen Elizabeth) was paid less than Matt Smith (Prince Philip) during the first and second seasons of the program. They apologized for that error and promised that in the future seasons, any actress playing Queen Elizabeth would receive compensation equal to any actor playing Prince Philip. Producer Andrew Mackie quipped, "going forward, no one gets paid more than the Queen."

In 2021, it became the first drama series to win all four major acting Emmys in a single year, as well as the Emmy awards for writing, directing, and series.

The Leica camera used by Antony Armstrong-Jones Snowdon was renowned for having a silent shutter which made it popular for photographers taking unobtrusive and candid shots. The Foley artist added the noise.

Due to rights issues, the show could not use the real photographs taken by Antony Armstrong-Jones Snowdon, so the photographer Julian Broad was asked to create images in the spirit of Armstrong-Jones's work to be shown in some scenes, such as the exhibition opening. Broad had previously worked as an assistant to the real Armstrong-Jones for two years during the 1980s.

When asked about the hardest part of playing the Queen, Olivia Colman said on an interview that it was not to give in to the emotion in certain moments, because she herself cries easily and the Queen is notoriously restrained in showing her emotions. So for those moments Colman often has to stop herself from crying, which she does by trying to remove herself mentally from the emotion of the scene.

Olivia Colman, who took over the role as Queen Elizabeth II in season three from Claire Foy, played an earlier Queen for which she won an Oscar, Queen Anne, in The Favourite (2018) with Emma Stone and Rachel Weisz.

Multiple Emmy-winning British costume designer, Michele Clapton, for her creations on Game of Thrones (2011), was also a principal costumer on season one of this series. https://www.elle.com/culture/g14516149/the-cast-of-the-crown-vs-real-life-royals/

MY VERDICT: This show is lavish and wonderful and beautifully acted. Each and every actor does a wonderful job of portraying these real-life people we’ve seen so often and have been such an enduring constant through many of our lives. Whether you love or hate the royal family, I think it’s so interesting to see the drama behind the tabloid headlines and I was interested to learn things bout the royal family I did not know from before I was born. I would recommend this show, don’t take a lot of it as fact though, it’s dramatic and over the top in a lot of places.

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