The Crown, Netflix’s popular historical drama series based on the British Royal family, will begin filming its fifth season from July, the makers told Variety.
The new season will have a new cast comprising Tenet actor Elizabeth Debicki starring as Princess Diana, Dominic West as Prince Charles, Imelda Staunton as Queen Elizabeth II, and Lesley Manville as Princess Margaret.
Debicki and Staunton will reprise their roles in the sixth and the final season of the series.
The filming will begin in Elstree Studios, north of London, where the bulk of the Left Bank-produced show is filmed, the Variety report added. While the United Kingdom is currently under its third nationwide lockdown, norms are expected to ease after April 12.
The fifth season will cover the 1990s, considered to be “a hugely turbulent period for the Royal Family”, the report said.
The fourth season of The Crown, which premiered on Netflix in November 2020, focuses on the period between 1979 to 1990. The season explored the turbulent relationship between late Princess Diana and her ex husband Prince Charles, Prince Charles’s extra-marital affair with Camilla Parker-Bowles, Princess Diana’s eating disorder, the assassination of Lord Mountbatten, and the ousting of foamier UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.
The series has been courting controversy since it premiered in 2016 with a tug-of-war on depiction of facts of the British Royal family. The lead cast until fourth season included Olivia Colman, Helena Bonham Carter, Tobias Menzies, Claire Foy, Vanessa Kirby, Emma Corrin, John Lithgow, Matt Smith, Josh O’ Connor, and others.
The fourth season that ruled the Golden Globe, and the Critics Choice, came under fire for allegedly “mixing facts with fiction”. In November 2020, Cultural Secretary of the United Kingdom Oliver Dowden asked Netflix to warn its viewers that the show is fictional, expressing fears that younger viewers would mistake fiction with fact.
Netflix refused to add the disclaimer and said, “We have always presented The Crown as a drama – and we have every confidence our members understand it’s a work of fiction that’s broadly based on historical events. As a result we have no plans – and see no need – to add a disclaimer.”