Olivia Colman and her co-stars in series three of The Crown

The year is 1964 and the Royal Mail has decided it’s time to refresh the Queen’s profile on the postage stamp. 

The updated images are brought to Her Majesty for approval, and Olivia Colman, who takes over the mantle of the monarch in series three of Netflix’s award-winning hit drama The Crown, looks with wry wistfulness at the younger, dewier image of Claire Foy, her predecessor in the role, on the old stamp. 

Then she turns resignedly to the new stamp, bearing a still elegant but undeniably more mature Queen. 

As one diplomatic adviser points out, the sovereign is in transition from young woman to… ‘Old bat?’ Her Majesty interrupts briskly.

And so we enter a new series of The Crown, which takes Elizabeth and the rest of the Royal Family from the years 1964 to 1976. 

They were years of exciting innovation in the worlds of music, fashion and science, and of escalating tensions within the family itself as the young royals began to enter adulthood and Margaret’s marriage to Lord Snowdon continued to unravel.

‘Elizabeth is getting older,’ says Peter Morgan, creator of the long-running series, which this year will take Her Majesty from the ages of 38 to 50. 

‘One of the things I love about this season is that both Elizabeth and Philip are getting older, and it’s quite moving to watch. 

‘The faces have changed, the lines are showing, the bodies are starting to ache. There are episodes about mid-life crises. It happens!’

For many actresses, the idea of drawing attention to the ageing process is like committing professional suicide. 

But for Olivia – fresh from winning an Oscar for her portrayal of another royal, Queen Anne, in last year’s highly acclaimed film The Favourite – the task of succeeding Claire Foy as a not-quite-so-young sovereign was one she approached with relish. 

‘Claire and I had a sort of handover before I took the role, because when the producers offered it to me they very sweetly said, “Why don’t you speak to her, she might tell you not to do it?”

‘Luckily she didn’t. She just said, “Congratulations, you’ll love it!” She handed over the mantle, and was incredibly encouraging. 

‘She didn’t give me any actual advice – and certainly didn’t say anything like, “Well, I did this very well and I’d like you to keep doing that!” But because I was such a fan of the show, and of Claire, I spent the first couple of weeks trying to imagine how she’d do it and more or less copying everything she’d done. 

‘But eventually you have to find your own way, which I did.’

She admits that at first she found it a challenge to portray one of the most famous women in the world.

‘It wasn’t like playing Queen Anne, because with the present Queen everyone knows her voice, what she looks like. 

‘So to a degree you do have to do things at least a bit like she does. 

‘But then on the other hand, this series is a piece of drama rather than a documentary, and it was the beautiful writing of Peter Morgan that gave me an insight into what might have been going on in her private life. 

‘After that, it’s just imagining it and playing with it… and doing a bit of an impression of Claire along the way.’

One part of the character she struggled with was Elizabeth’s walk. 

‘I don’t naturally walk in a very ladylike manner,’ she sighs. 

‘Elizabeth doesn’t wear massively terrifying heels, but she does wear them. 

‘One day I came to work and found a note from the director Ben Caron that said, “Less farmer, more Queen!” It was an excellent note, because I suddenly thought, “Oh, I totally understand what you mean!” I’m also very emotional and I cry a lot – if I see a picture of a puppy I burst into tears – but the Queen, well, she might want to do that but she’s not allowed to. 

‘So I think you’ll find there are lots of shots of the back of my head!’

At 45, Olivia is too young to remember the period the series depicts. 

‘I was born in 1974, so most of it is before me, but it was a fascinating period of history. 

‘Just think back to the first Moon landing, for instance. We take it for granted now, but back then it was ridiculous to think they even managed to do it at all. 

‘If you watch the movie First Man, you’ll see they’re in just a little tin can and yet they’re going to the Moon! Moments like that make you realise how extraordinary things were when they first happened.’

Peter Morgan cautions that while America was exploring outer space and The Beatles were changing the face of popular music, much of life in Britain then was distinctly grey, overshadowed by an economy at breaking point. 

‘It was the time of labour disputes and industrial conflicts, when Britain was really becoming the sick man of Europe,’ he says. 

‘It was the time of my own childhood, when I remember three-day weeks and coming home from school to blackouts with candles.

‘The pound was being devalued and Britain was falling apart – which actually feels very relevant and timely right now.’

The young royals are growing up. 

Shy Prince Charles, played by The Durrells’ Josh O’Connor, is being drawn out of his shell by free-spirited debutante Camilla Shand (Call The Midwife’s Emerald Fennell), while outspoken Princess Anne (Les Misérables’ Erin Doherty) is taking no nonsense from anyone.

‘Anne was talked of as being this feisty woman,’ says Erin. 

‘And I think that’s great, because it opens up a world of possibilities when I’m portraying her in her teens and 20s. 

‘You start to see why she might have made some decisions that people have later judged her quite harshly for. 

‘I didn’t know much about Anne when I got the part, but there’s loads of footage of her at that age, and I spent a lot of time prepping for the role by scanning through YouTube videos. 

‘In the end it was quite useful to come at it from not knowing much, because I came to it from a place of openness, and all the information I was finding out really made sense to me.’

Anne’s closeness to her father is well documented, but Erin says the thing that most intrigued her about the princess is her relationship with her mother. 

‘I’m fascinated by it. Whenever I saw Olivia filming a scene I’d watch it as Anne, wondering what Anne really thinks about her.

‘Does she respect her choices? Does she base any of her own motherly choices on or against her relationship with her mother? It was something I was always wondering about.’

Life for the young Charles was less than rosy too, says Josh O’Connor. 

‘We know at the beginning of the series that he’s had a difficult time at school. 

‘And we know that one day he’s going to be King of England. 

‘What that means for him is that he’s constantly got that philosophical question going around in his head, that in order for him to have meaning in his life it will require his mother to die.

‘What that must do to the psyche of a man is quite extraordinary.

‘There was also the fact that around this period, the press started to change.   

‘Suddenly everything was being watched and the interest in the royals took a new form. Charles had been protected from the public eye, but suddenly he became a celebrity. 

‘It was probably very hard for him.’

Josh says he was intrigued by a quote he found from the young Charles saying he would have liked to have been an actor. 

‘And he obviously does still have a huge fondness for the theatre – he actually came to see a play I did with the RSC a few years ago. 

‘I think his wanting to be an actor was maybe part of wanting people to take the time to look at him properly. 

‘Again, it was something to do with the fact that for his entire life he’s been in the shadow of his mother, as a king-in-waiting. I like to think there’s a link to acting there.’

Josh has joked in the past that he already has the prominent ears to play the Prince of Wales, but today he says he found inspiration for his body language in the prince’s father Philip, now played by Game Of Thrones’ Tobias Menzies. 

‘I nicked a lot of stuff from Matt Smith,’ he laughs, referring to the actor who played Philip in the first two seasons of the show. 

‘But it’s true, there’s a lot of archival footage of Charles and you can actually see the beginning of the way he acts and stands if you look at the young Philip. 

‘You can mark little moments where you think, “Maybe he got that from his father.”’

Much less is known about the teenaged Camilla Shand, later Parker Bowles, which gave Emerald Fennell more leeway. 

‘I’m in a different position to Erin and Josh. There’s very little in the archives about Camilla as a young woman. 

‘I think she’s quite an unusual person for any time, but she’s also incredibly private, which is interesting considering the role in life she has now. 

‘So what was lovely about not knowing much about her was that we were able to create her based on who she is now, which gave us a bit more to play with.

‘We do know that when she was in her teens she went to finishing school in Switzerland where she learned things like how to curtsey and how to get out of a Jaguar – a lesson I definitely did not learn quickly enough on this job. But she was great fun to play. 

‘They’re living in the 1970s, and in many ways young people then were far more free than we are now. 

‘They had more girlfriends and boyfriends, and because in that social strata they didn’t really have jobs, they could just stay out all night partying. 

‘It’s a period piece but it wasn’t like we were living in the world of Jane Austen – these people were all goers!’

She says one thing she does know about Camilla is that, as a young woman, she was highly sought after. 

‘She was incredibly attractive, she was funny and she was straightforward, and she didn’t care about all the etiquette of the time. 

‘She was a laugh, and people liked hanging out with her, and that was the reason why she had to make the choice between the man who would be king and one of the great hunks of the day, Andrew Parker Bowles.’

Peter Morgan admits that the story of Charles and Camilla is one he gave some thought to before telling. 

‘I’m passionate about the show not being a soap opera,’ he says. 

‘But it’s a matter of historical record that – as we saw with the abdication of Edward VIII – a relationship can change the course of history. 

‘I’ve been given much more information than I’d had before about the real nature of the Charles/Camilla relationship, and the complexity of the entanglements, and I thought long and hard about whether to explore that stuff on screen.

‘But given that Camilla is almost certainly going to become queen and Charles is certainly going to become king, it’s important that people know what happened. 

‘So much attention was given to Diana, who was so luminescent and such a goddess, that the complexity of the origins of the love between Charles and Camilla has been eclipsed. 

‘I think we’re doing a lot here to explain what really went on.’

Meanwhile, just four years into their marriage, Princess Margaret and Lord Snowdon are having more and more bitter arguments, often in public and to the horror of those around them. 

‘The public rows were something they did a lot,’ says Star Wars actor Ben Daniels, who is cast as Lord Snowdon. 

‘Most couples who fight only do so when they’re alone, but these two would often fight when they weren’t at home too. 

‘I think they were so used to working with staff around them in their private lives, that they just forgot other people were there in public too. 

‘Also, I think a lot of it was part of the game between them – they actually enjoyed fighting in front of other people.

‘It was kind of foreplay for them in many ways, they would have a massive row and then have great sex afterwards. They were a strange couple!’

‘They were both complicated characters,’ agrees Helena Bonham Carter, who takes over the role of Margaret from Vanessa Kirby. 

‘It didn’t take long for the marriage to get acrimonious, and I think the problem they had was that there was so much chemistry between them that it was almost too much, so it just had to combust. 

‘It was all very theatrical. 

‘They were very similar people, and in many ways they were too alike in that they both needed the same thing, which was most of the attention.’

Matters come to a head on a trip to America that was supposed to be a book tour for Lord Snowdon, but which turned instead into an official royal visit. 

‘The family were always having to justify the tax money,’ says Helena, ‘so everyone was saying, “Hang on, Tony and Margaret always seem to be partying. 

‘Let’s put them out on tour and show the British public that they’re working.” 

‘The trip was a great success, they were sensational stars in America and everyone loved them.’

In fact, she adds, the Americans loved Margaret just that little bit too much for Tony’s liking. 

‘He wasn’t a natural consort,’ she says. 

‘They both wanted to be the star in the marriage, so instead of sometimes standing back and letting the other person shine, they each found the other one eclipsed them.’

Both agree Margaret and Snowdon came to the marriage as emotionally damaged individuals. 

‘If Margaret had been born later, a lot of her issues would not have happened,’ says Helena. 

‘She would have married a divorced person in Peter Townsend, and been happy. 

‘She was also very funny and really clever, with a really good mind on her – she could do a crossword in 11 minutes – and I think that was a source of frustration to her, because her mind wasn’t exercised enough. 

‘I don’t think she found being alive very easy, and if you’re vulnerable and you’re in a public position perpetually, then it’s very hard. 

‘I sometimes wonder what she would have done if she hadn’t been a royal – something quite dynamic and active, probably, like heading a big charity, or something on the business side to do with the arts.’

Snowdon was battling demons of his own, says Ben. 

‘His mother abandoned him, really. He contracted polio at 16 and was in hospital for a year, and his mother didn’t visit him once.

‘So he grew up a mass of contradictions. 

‘On the one hand he was an incredibly compassionate human being, filled with empathy, who fought endlessly for the rights of people with disabilities and mental health issues. 

‘On the other, he could be incredibly cruel. 

‘He developed this sort of compartmentalised way of living where he’s having the most amazing sex life with Margaret, but also he’s having an affair with a married woman here, a man there, and he had no guilt about it.’

Unhappy in her marriage, Margaret threw herself into her love of the arts, famously meeting all the top figures in entertainment of the day. 

‘She met The Beatles,’ says Helena. 

‘There’s a funny story about that, which is that Margaret always had a good time at a party but there was a protocol that nobody could eat until she left.

‘A lot of people would be terrified to tell her that, but at last one of the band said, “You know, Margaret, we’re not allowed to eat until you go.” And she said, “Oh, well, I’ll go then!”

‘But then at other times she would really put people down. 

‘She was a very complex woman. I think she would have been a more natural queen than Elizabeth, actually. 

‘The irony of the situation is that they were both born with entirely wrong dispositions, because Margaret would have been comfortable being a queen while Elizabeth is more modest – her instinct is to stay with the horses.’

As the offspring of a prominent political family, Helena actually met Princess Margaret. 

‘I met her a couple of times – she was very good friends with my uncle, Mark Bonham Carter, the Liberal MP. 

‘There’s a lot of loneliness and isolation that comes with being a high-up royal because the protocol is that nobody approaches you – you have to do the approaching – and when she spoke to you there was often an ambivalence about her. 

‘She would say something and put you down at the same time. 

‘Once she approached me – this was about ten years after I’d started acting – and said, “You’re getting better, aren’t you?” Getting better! I just said, “Thank you, Ma’am.”’

In researching the role, she got to meet many people who had been close to the princess. 

She also took a less conventional route to get to know her. 

‘I consulted a medium,’ she admits. 

‘I know it’s deeply worrying because it makes me sound even more crackers than I usually am – and I am crackers! But I thought, “Well, why not?” I have a few friends who are mediums and I thought, “Why not just try and talk to Margaret herself, and get it straight from the horse’s mouth, as it were?”

‘So I went to this great friend of mine who’s met other dead people in the past, and she said that Margaret was there and in full gear, and very happy. 

‘The first thing this ghost – if she really was there – said to me was, “I am very glad it was you for the role and not the other actress they were considering” – which was so her.’ 

We don’t know if another actress was considered, but it amused Helena that even from beyond the grave, Margaret managed a put-down.

‘She also said she was slightly worried that I wouldn’t be neat enough, or scrubbed up enough. 

‘I assured her that I was all for being neat. It’s not what I normally wear, but I could do it if need be. 

‘The other thing she said was, “Get my smoking right – always hold the cigarette with a holder so that my hair doesn’t smell, and try to remember that both the cigarette and the holder are as much a means of expression as they are just a cigarette.” 

‘I thought that was very useful.’

Peter Morgan says one thing he’s discovered from making this series is that if just by virtue of her unprecedentedly long reign, the Queen unites families in a way that little else does. 

‘No way would I have thought of this before the series started, but she’s been the connective tissue between generations – for great-grandfather, grandfather, father and son, she’s been the one unifying thing.

‘I’ve heard about people who were watching the show with a relation with whom they had nothing in common, and just because of her they have felt connected. 

‘In the world we’re in today, you can’t help thinking it’s great to have some stability outside of politics.’

Olivia adds that she’s come out of the role as a huge fan of Her Majesty. 

‘She made a vow as a young woman in her 20s and she’s stuck to it into her 90s,’ she says. 

‘There aren’t many people – except possibly the Dalai Lama – who have stuck with something for such a long time. 

‘And she’s as strong as steel. 

‘If she has to go and visit a very sad situation they don’t need her to cry, they need her to be a rock, and she manages to do that. 

‘I think she’s amazing, actually, and the more I learn about her, the more I think so.’

Nevertheless, she confesses, there are still a couple of things about the monarch she’s left wondering about. 

‘I do wonder what she keeps in her handbag. I met her lady-in-waiting and I asked her and she said, very politely, “A lipstick.” 

‘I think the form is, whatever else is in the Queen’s bag is the Queen’s business.

‘I also wonder how she manages to stand on her feet in those heels all day long, and what does she like to do when no one else is around? I like the idea that maybe she sits on the sofa with her feet up, watching television. 

‘Maybe she likes to watch Love Island. I bet she loves Coronation Street…’  

The Crown will return to Netflix on Sunday 17 November.