Fans of The Crown should be royally excited by a new set of photos showing the main cast from season 5 of the Netflix series.
The images feature Dominic West‘s Prince Charles, Elizabeth Debicki‘s Princess Diana, Olivia Williams’ Camilla Parker-Bowles, Imelda Staunton‘s Queen Elizabeth, Jonathan Pryce’s Prince Philip, Claudia Harrison’s Princess Anne, Lesley Manville’s Princess Margaret, and more.
A highlight is the first look at Charles and Diana with their sons, William and Harry.
Netflix Dominic West and Elizabeth Debicki in ‘The Crown’ season 5
The upcoming fifth season of the British royal family drama is set in the 1990s, when the affair between Charles and Camilla became public knowledge, and the photos show West and Williams’ version of the couple together for the first time. They also offer a first look of Jonny Lee Miller as John Major, who was U.K. Prime Minister for much of the period detailed in season 5 by the show’s creator, Peter Morgan.
Netflix Olivia Williams and Dominic West in ‘The Crown’ season 5
In addition, Netflix has released a series of quotes from the cast via the streaming service’s website, Tudum.
“What has been nice, and I hope I don’t prove them wrong, is people saying, ‘I’m really looking forward to seeing her as the queen,'” says Staunton. “So, let’s just hope that works out for them because I’ve done it. Nothing I can do about it now!”
“Doing this and looking into Philip’s background and finding out what made him the man he was, that was the interest to me,” says Pryce. “I’m more interested in their life, their emotional life, which is what The Crown explores.”
Netflix Imelda Staunton and Jonathan Pryce in ‘The Crown’ season 5
Says West, “I think people understand, because the cast has changed every two seasons, that this is not an imitation. This is an evoking of a character. That’s really where the show lives: in the imagined conversations of their private life, which is something that no one knows. I think that’s what it gets a lot of criticism for. How can you know what they talk about in their private lives? The obvious answer is we don’t, but we have an incredible writer, a dramatist, who imagines based on exhaustive research, and that’s really part of the fascination of the show.”
Netflix Elizabeth Debicki in ‘The Crown’ season 5
“That’s the amazing thing about playing these people at this time, because in the journey of The Crown so far out of all the seasons, this is the most visual content we have of the Royal Family,” says Debicki. “In the ’90s everything had started to be filmed, and also it was the birth of the 24-hour news cycle, so there’s just this incredible amount of content that we have access to. Diana was the most photographed person in the world at that time. As an actor you open the portal and this huge tsunami of information comes at you. I happily swam around in it.”
Netflix Jonny Lee Miller in ‘The Crown’ season 5
“One of the great things about The Crown is we get to see those sort of imagined intimate moments, which maybe give us a better perspective on someone that we’ve judged,” says Williams. “Charles and Camilla seem to have a very healthy sense of humor about what at times must be an unbearable predicament. And that is the thing that I most want to show.”
Netflix Lesley Manville in ‘The Crown’ season 5
Says Manville, “I had a lot of documentaries to watch, pictures, loads to read, but finally the scripts arrived, and that’s it. All the books I read have different people’s versions of events. So you’ve got to let it go in and just sink in, but then you almost forget about it because finally the scripts come and that’s what you work with.”
Netflix Claudia Harrison in ‘The Crown’ season 5
“Anne’s an extraordinary character,” says Harrison. “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.”
Season 5 of The Crown premieres Nov. 9 on Netflix. See the new images from it above.
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