THE Crown’s Imelda Staunton is “terrified” to be the last actress to portray Queen Elizabeth on the hit Netflix drama.
Staunton, 64, is taking the reins of playing the British monarch from Oscar winner Olivia Colman and will play the Queen in the final two seasons of The Crown.
As if playing one of the most famous and powerful women in the world was not intimidating enough, Staunton admitted she’s feeling “pressure from every angle”.
The Academy Award nominated actress said taking the baton from Claire Foy and Colman who played Queen Elizabeth in the first four seasons of the show was a lot of pressure.
Another stressful element of taking on such an iconic role was playing a person whom people knew so well.
“I’m following two extraordinary actresses but one extraordinary human being,” Staunton told Ruth Langsford and Eamonn Holmes on This Morning.
“She is so much in a lot of our lives we know how she looks and sounds, of course, I have to be like her as much as I can but also tell a story and the story of her day.”
The Harry Potter actress said while she relied on historical footage of the Queen, she was “excited” to portray the Royal Family’s more private moments.
“We’ve all got so much footage of the queen but the strength of The Crown has been going inside those private lives and making,” she explained.
“I don’t start filming until next July but I’m working on it now listening to her watching her.
“I’m very excited and terrified but so looking forward to take the baton and move it on.”
Show bosses confirmed in July that Staunton will take the crown from Colman for the show’s final two seasons.
In a tweet from the official Netflix account, writer/creator Peter Morgan said: “As we started to discuss the storylines for Series 5, it soon became clear that in order to do justice to the richness and complexity of the story we should go back to the original plan and do six seasons.”
Netflix’s official Twitter account tweeted the exciting news, writing: “News from the palace: we can confirm there will be a sixth (and final) season of
@TheCrownNetflix, in addition to the previously announced five!”
It went on to conclude: “So to summarise – we’ll have one more season with Queen Olivia Colman, before she passes the crown to Imelda Staunton. We’re just half way through! Lovely.”
The Crown only recently wrapped its season four filming early amid the coronavirus outbreak in a desperate bid to “tie up loose ends”.
The hotly-anticipated fourth series will drop on November 15, 2020.
It will be available on the streaming site at 8am on that same day.
