The Crown: The Official Podcast

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What's this I hear about a trip to New York… 

…The one who insisted on talking, I always said silence was preferable.

Series intro

Welcome to The Crown, the Official Podcast. I'm Edith Bowman, and this show has followed the fourth season of the Netflix original series The Crown episode by episode. We've taken you behind the scenes, spoken with many of the talented people involved and dived deep into the stories. 

Episode intro

Today, we're talking about the final episode of season four, titled ‘War’. Thatcher’s position as Prime Minister hangs in the balance as members of her cabinet turn against her. Princess Diana, meanwhile, is set to take on her first official solo trip overseas to New York, despite Charles’ doubts. Will Thatcher be able to secure her position? Will Diana's trip be a success? Can war be avoided? Or is it the only way forward?

We'll be talking in depth about scenes and events that feature in this episode. So, if you haven't watched episode 10 yet, I suggest you do it now, or very soon.

Edith v/o

Coming up later, we'll hear once again from Head of Research Annie Sulzberger, as well as from her Royal Highness herself, Olivia Colman.

Clip from Olivia

I've done it for quite a long time now, and I've had a lovely time. And when people I love will, will come with me, it's quite a joyful thing. We've had a great time.

Edith v/o

We'll also hear from Gillian Anderson on working with Olivia.

Clip from Gillian

Edith v/o

But first, for the last time I spoke with show creator, Peter Morgan at his house in London. And I asked him if he enjoys writing the final episode of a series…

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Peter: I much prefer the last episode to the first episode. I feel I can just go for it. I re-watched episodes the other day and I was really struck by how it is a series of very dramatic two-hander scenes and they go right the way back to about halfway, there comes a point about halfway through the episode.

There are sort of four or five or six scenes and they sort of come at you one after the other and each one tops up, the first one ratchets up the tension and then the others all just add a little bit more, a little bit more, a little bit more, and I'm not sure that it had been intended that way, but you do know when you come to the final episode, you can slightly take the gloves off, and have a go for it.

Edith: This trip that Diana takes to New York is a huge moment.

Peter: I wanted to show Diana in New York being a rock star and killing it, which is what she did. Her hugging the child with AIDS, of course the child. 

Edith: Yeah

Peter: That was a really big breakthrough moment. And it was the kind of emotionally heroic, I suppose, gesture that she could make because she wasn't the queen. And that's why I gave Charles those lines about “You don't think we could do that to theatrically hug the wretched and the dispossessed”

The exquisite selfishness of your motives… 

…I doubt it.

Peter: We all know that one of the biggest things that caused the problems was the degree to which her PR work eclipsed them. And it must've been very frustrating. For Princess Anne, it's known. Charles hated being eclipsed. Of course, he's the heir to the throne. And Diana just turns up and that's it. The front two or three pages.

EB: He’s so horrible her when she comes back. All she wants as a thank you and well done.

PM: But hopefully we see that in context. Cause another one of the scenes, of course it's the scene between him and Camilla in which he sees her destroyed by Diana's popularity.

Edith: Writing those three characters, not swaying to one or the other, you’ve almost got kind of emotional waying scales out for each one, in terms of not showing too much sympathy for one and too much sympathy for the other, getting that balance right between those three characters and making sure that no one is purely seen as a villain.

PM: I think that criticism of Charles and Camilla over the years has been so pointed that you want to say to these imaginary characters, you know, what, what would you like to say in your defence? Everybody needs a fair hearing, and it's never quite as straightforward as it appears.

Someone like me has no place in a fairy tale… 

…She will always defeat me in the court of public opinion.

PM: Gillian did a screening yesterday for some friends of, of episodes one and two, and she hadn't seen them before completed. And there were three generations there. There were people of grandparent age, parent age and children there. And what was fantastic for me was that people were talking afterwards in the way that I wanted them to talk, which is that they were making sense of each other's generations.

And that, for example, the first couple of seasons, you know this show is a window to look in at the generations of our grandparents, you know the fifties. And then through the sixties and seventies, you get a chance to explore our parents' generation. I'm speaking as a person who's in mid-fifties, mid to late fifties. And now we're entering our generation, watching the episode where Thatcher became prime minister.

You know, that was when I was in adulthood, I would call that my generation. That's when I was at university, really forming my own opinions about life. And for me to have my children watch that. And for them, it's a foreign country. To be honest, they don't know who Thatcher is. They don't know who Diana is.

They know who, of course William is. But they have no idea of his mother nor indeed her legacy and the impact on British cultural life. And that this is in some way, our social history and that unfortunately part of that involves looking at their marriage. But the failures of their marriage don't particularly interest me, unless it swings round to having dramatic influence on the outcome of the line of succession or indeed of where The Crown ends. And that this institution, anybody who is not at the heart of it, and there's ultimately really only one person at the heart of it, everybody else is expendable and everybody else feels the horror of that, how inessential they all are.

There's really only one person that matters and much more important to me is that, is that we're using this family as a bunch of avatars to explore the second half of the 20th century. 

EB: Did you enjoy writing Thatcher?

PM: Yes. I did. I enjoyed writing Thatcher because it's so interesting. Everything is worth looking at again with the benefit of a 20 or 30 or hindsight. 

EB: You humanize her, that's what I think is great about it. 

PM: I concentrated on the two or three moments where we knew she'd reached some sort of emotional distress, in a way. When she was worried about her son, when she was forced to leave office.

EB: In this episode, we see this emotional broken, fragile women that is miles apart from where we first see her.

PM: Yeah, and the queen of course is exactly where we first see her again. 

Edith: Yeah. 

Peter: There’s this revolving door of people being carried out, you know, one after another, after another, after another.

EB: Talking of revolving doors we've got bye-bye to this wonderful cast from season three and four, and we're welcoming a whole new bunch.

EB: And is that in your mind when you're right in the last episode of the season? That this is the final time we will see this collection of actors in these roles?

PM: Yeah, I do think so. And I think as a consequence, I did write it a little bit, like a, like a dodgy libretto in that they all come out, they do come out for their little bows. They come out to do their last little song and then a bow, and yeah. And it was, it was important to do. And I think probably, it's my favourite episode of the season, I think, the 10th one. It's undeniable, the emotional impact of that. And I don't know whether, what we're bringing to that when we watch it is the sense that we're not going to be seeing these, these actors playing it anymore. But it's powerful.

Edith v/o

We'll hear more from Peter Morgan later to look ahead to the final two seasons of the Crown. 

But back to this episode, let's hear from Gillian Anderson who plays the formidable Margaret Thatcher in this season. I had a remote chat with Gillian about Thatcher's journey across the season. And we began by discussing Thatcher's position in this final episode.

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GA: I think you can see from her face in the commons that she knows what's coming. 

EB: Mmm. 

GA: And yet I think she's just completely side-lined and cannot believe that it's happening. And it feels like real treachery. She's fighting for her life at that point. I mean, this is, her, politics is her life and she says as much, that's all she really has, it’s her great love.

And so it's a real, real deep betrayal. And also I think because of how her father also was betrayed when he was let go, it mirrors, all of that. And she has huge feelings about how her father was voted out. And so, you know, it's the first time we see, I mean, we saw a bit of emotion around episode four when her son went missing, but Peter's written this, this scene when she properly breaks down and you do feel the weight of everything that's come before and, and everything that might be up ahead. But at that point, she's scrambling. We see her trying every last…I’m not going to say trick because there were people that she still felt like that she could rely on.

And people that she believed knew what was best for the country. And knew that she wasn't done yet and that if they could just, just last a little bit longer then the dreams that she had would be able to prevail. And she's really broken. And, and we see that, and we see her coming to the queen on the one hand begging, but on the other hand stating what, where her power lies that she can dissolve parliament, she doesn’t need to ask permission.

And then we see her leave. And when she returns, it's a really beautiful moment between Thatcher and the queen. And the queen extends this honor to her, to the degree that she's speechless.

The order of merit is not awarded by some faceless committee…

…Two, the one inherited by our first woman prime minister. 

GA: As you will know, from doing the podcast with Olivia, she is a delight, and so much hilarity ensued the minute cut was called and sometimes very difficult to pull oneself back together into, into Margaret Thatcher, from chatting with Olivia Coleman about various things, kids, holidays, whatever… holidays.

EB: Remember those!

GA: Yes. No. But, but also what's amazing about Olivia is how she is pretty much word perfect all the time. And she absorbs, somehow absorbs the script. And so in the reverse, when it was my turn and not quite as absorbing as, as that, but really, you know, sometimes, probably too focused and too concentrated on the little bits that are, that haven't come out quite right and et cetera et cetera… for all the takes that I ended up doing to feel like I was getting it, she was unbelievably patient and would do it a million times and then we'd turn around and she'd do it in three takes. 

EB: Was it sad to not say goodbye to her, but the effort and the, the energy I, that you, must've gone into to this part over this period of time? 

GA: When I was done with doing Blanche, I did Blanche DuBois in Streetcar, and I mourned, both times we did it. I mourned for days, weeping, because especially the second time and I didn't really have that with Thatcher!

EB: See ya! 

GA: Oh thank God

EB: Get this wig off me!

GA: …haranguing all the time! But no, I'd be delighted to jump into her shoes again. I mean, if there was an opportunity for that, for the right moment, but it doesn't feel, it's not quite the same somehow. I'm not quite sure. I don't know why, but it didn't feel. Yes, it was a lot of effort, but even just six episodes in one season felt like in this show, it felt like it was worth all the effort. And I’d do it again in a second if they asked me to come back and I don't know play… 

EB: Who could be we have?

GA: Who could I play… who could I pop up as?

Edith v/o

Picking the brains of head of research Annie Sulzberger is one of my favourite things about doing this podcast. And luckily for me, I got the chance to sit down with her one last time to discuss this episode. 

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AS: When we're plotting out a series, we're lucky in that we often use the prime minister's tenure as our bookend and with Thatcher she went on so long that it worked out pretty well for us. You know, we didn't have to introduce John major yet, sometimes we've had to do that in series one, you had to do introduce Anthony Eden because he came in early enough and then series 2, god, we had three. So her downfall would be the end of our series because it also works so well with Diana and Charles declaring war of a kind, the separation of their kind of ambitions as the Prince and Princess of Wales and what they expect of themselves in those roles.

EB: And there's pivotal points as well. In terms of the fall of Thatcher, there are specific moments be that Geoffrey Howe’s resignation and it's all these building blocks really isn't it to it all toppling over.

AS: Absolutely. And for Thatcher's downfall, you cannot underestimate the Falklands. This downfall should have happened in ‘83. The country had such extreme unemployment and urban deprivation and poverty levels. And her own party knew that there was this great disconnect between her understanding of her policies and how they affect people. I think she had the lowest approval ratings of a sitting prime minister by ‘82. So, if the Falklands hadn't happened, Thatcher would have left in ’83.

The problem is the numbers are against you… 

… but as your friend, as an ally, I think I speak for the majority when I say time might have come for some new blood.

Annie: So, Geoffrey Howe quits for a number of reasons, personal and political. And two weeks later, he's in the house of commons and he delivers his resignation speech, which is really a call to arms for everybody to stand up and say: this woman is destroying our country. She's destroying our party. This is not the kind of consensus politics that we believe in. Yes, we're conservative in our economic values and our social values, but this is not a conservative values, woman. 

So there's a leadership contest that comes out of that. She survives the first round, but without enough of a majority. So she then takes members of her cabinet into her office and asks them if they will support her.

It is very clear. She will have almost no support. And then she decides to leave. She will write this as a backstab affair. That's what it was. And I think in her final statement to the public she, she says, there's so much more that I could have done.

EB: As well as the Thatcher narrative in this episode, we see Diana take on her first solo trip to New York. What was the purpose of this particular storyline and what it kind of reinforced as well? 

AS: The Diana that you want to get to by the end of series four, as we transition into a new actress in series five, you have to get that glimpse of the Diana who we are going to come to know in the nineties as a very active woman globally, who takes on causes that are often sort of forgotten by other Royals and the woman who's going to become the queen of our hearts and be so mourned in 1997, who’s sort of revamping what it is like to be a working Royal.

And New York is that moment. So, New York in 1989, when she goes, it's her first official solo trip and official is important, cause she's been on many solo trips, but this is her first as the Princess of Wales, Wife, partner to the heir to the throne. And so she's doing what they all have to do on these overseas tours.

It's kind of a mixture of like cocktail parties, you know, visits to British businesses to help promote British trade and arts. And then she slips in two very specific, very important visits. She goes to the lower East side to visit a centre for women and children who find themselves facing homelessness for a variety of reasons. And she goes to the children's aid ward, AIDs ward at Harlem hospital, which as a New Yorker is a place I can tell you, I don't think most American officials would go to. And in that moment, she does something extraordinary. 

It's 1989 and the stigma of AIDS is still very strong and there are still so many conspiracy theories out there over how you contract HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.

And then the one that's continuing the most is casual touch, that it can transmit through skin. Which we now know is absolutely ludicrous by then they knew it was ludicrous, but it's still, 

EB: Yeah 

AS: It lingered. She's touring this facility, she's meeting parents of some of the kids, but then some of the kids don't have families. Their parents are either, have passed away or for one reason or another cannot undertake their parental duties. So she's meeting a six-year-old boy and she is overcome with emotion, as any mother would be to hug him and she hugs him. And in that one moment, she proves you should not be scared to touch these children.

You should not be scared to touch anybody with AIDS. This ‘casual contact’ is a ludicrous conspiracy theory. It's important to acknowledge that this visit wasn't her first to an AIDS ward, in 87 she shook the hands of a man dying of AIDS at Middlesex hospital, and then the hands of all the staff of that ward as well. And she did so gloveless in order to disprove the theory that you could catch HIV through casual contact, but this didn't make what she did in Harlem any less important. And her visit brings this ward and the plight of this, of these children, right to the fore of the news that night, throughout America. And for the first time in a long time, the hospital gets requests to foster the kids. So there's a direct, really hopeful, wonderful consequence of her actions.

She just wanted to hug a child, living a very difficult life. 

EB: It’s that maternal instinct.

AS: That's it! But what came out of it was possibly new parents for these children and the head of this unit was really moved by Diana and is just flabbergasted by the care that Diana is taking and states very clearly to the press, this is not an airhead. This is not a woman who’s just going through the motions to do the right things because she has to tick a box. She is here to love these kids, to really find out about their lives. And that is the Diana you will know for the rest of her life. 

We love her, she’s beautiful… 

… that is a god given talent!

Now, there's still one very important person left to speak to. The queen herself, Olivia Colman. We were invited on set at Elstree studios on a cold rainy day back in February. And we were lucky enough to catch Olivia when she’d just finished filming. Now, one thing to add, I had completely lost my voice at the time. So please do excuse my croakiness.

Edith: Olivia, thank you for coming to chat to us.

OC: You’re welcome.

EB: You’ve literally just finished for day and it's only half past ten!

OC: I know don’t tell everyone how early it is, I always crack on about how hard it is, the long hours. I finished at 10!

EB: What have you just finished? What have you just filmed? 

OC: I’ve just thrown a load of earth into Mountbatten's grave, you know…

EB: Lush.

OC: Just you know, Thursday morning. 

EB: Happy Thursday, but you've not got long. How long have you got left? 

OC: A week. 

EB: Oh my God. I don't know what your expectations were coming into work on the show, but it was the reality what your expectation was?

OC: I think so. Yeah. I've never done a camera test before. That seems like a big Hollywood film type thing to do.

Not very British telly. Yeah. And so, the first thing I had to do was a camera test, and that was like: Oh my God, what have I gotten myself into? And it sort of stayed at that level, albeit just really lovely people, but they really support all the departments. It felt that you were part of something big and sort of glamorous and chic.

EB: Yeah. 

OC: All the way through. 

EB: You know, the queen is the constant throughout all. And you have this wonderful opportunity in season four for almost these great double acts. 

OC: Yeah. 

EB: Partnerships that she has with various…

OC: Various characters…

EB: Various people, and as an actor, I imagine that's a wonderful thing. Having different actors to play off?

OC: Yeah, totally. And it's a proper treat. So, it's two years of being utterly spoiled with fantastic writing, working with amazing people every day you come in and you know, we sit and go great! I've got a scene with Gillian Anderson!

EB: Can we talk about Gillian?

OC: Okay, what should we talk about because… she’s amazing!

EB: Oh my God… the voice…

OC: It’s spooky. Yeah, every now and then I sat opposite her just went – wah! – cause the hair and the…

EB: The lips…

OC: All the movements as well. And the way she. She apparently liked her left side. So that's why a lot of it has done in her to the left. And then she punctuates with a head move and you can see her doing all that. 

EB: Yeah! 

OC: Cause we all, well, anyone younger than me won't remember it, 

EB: But they know what she looks like and they know what she sounds like. 

OC: Yeah. And also people did impressions of her, you know, and ‘spitting image’ and all that stuff. 

EB: Spitting image, yeah. 

OC: But to see, yeah, Gillian really. Oh, it's really brilliant. Is it a privilege to sit opposite her. 

EB: That relationship between your two characters, and it was interesting Peter talking about how each prime minister has a different relationship to the queen, you know? There's. Wilson was the like…

OC: He likens it to family members? Yeah. Yeah. I love the way he does that.

EB: Thatcher was sister. Wasn't it? Twin?

OC: Well I don’t like twin, I’m not sure about that… Twins that don’t really don't get on maybe!

Power is nothing without authority...

…I will have nothing. 

EB: I find it brilliant that the pull of the power between the two of them.

OC: Yeah. Also to encounter another very powerful woman was an unusual thing and there's a sort of, yeah, jockeying for position a bit. 

EB: What do you love about that opportunity to have a two-hander? 

OC: Yes I love the opportunity to just do one-on-one and talk and to react to each other and feel the way, but then I equally love a room of lots of people reacting, in a sort of dinner party or

EB: Ibble dibble?

OC: Ibble dibble! Really fun.

EB: The comedy is something that I think a lot of people don't expect with The Crown, but I think it's something that is threaded throughout it as well in the right places, particularly with, with you and Tobias. 

OC: Well, I can't help myself. Sometimes my face goes into something that looks a bit funny by accident and Peter bends with that, which is an incredible skill.

EB: Yeah. 

OC: So he goes, I think she might make this funny. So he says, we'll work with that. I didn't mean to.

EB: But that's a wonderful way of someone like Peter paying attention to you and paying attention to your portrayal of her. 

OC: And the more he gets to know you and how your voice works, you can see that he starts to put that into his writing.

EB: Wow. 

OC: It fits you better. It's really clever. 

29:10

EB: One of the wonderful things I think in your portrayal of her, is the joy and the happiness that she gets out of the particular side of her life that involves her in countryside? 

OC: Yes. 

EB: And you see that in your performance, that she’s this…

OC: I feel it too. Yeah. When we were in Scotland, I think it was happiest I've been in the whole, although I'm happy, I'm a happy person all the time.

But Oh God, it was amazing! Because normally at about four o'clock you get that slump. Everyone does. You think oh, you're never going to get through to the eight o'clock wrap, but we were out in the heather and Oh God, it was really, it's fills your soul and makes you so happy. It's so beautiful, but really no long hours outside. And you just don't feel sleepy. 

EB: Yeah. 

OC: Cos it's beautiful and you feel so lucky. And then you suddenly go, why the hell do I live in the middle of the city? See, I should be here! This is where I should be!

EB: That’s lovely though cause you get a sense of heart joy from that.

OC: Yeah! It was total freedom. No one can see you! Heaven! God, I totally understand why, well she spent her whole life in horses. She's incredible as woman.

EB: Yeah. Could you ride before?

OC: No. 

EB: Oh, wow. Really? 

OC: Yeah. 

EB: Is that you riding in, towards Anne then in the country? Did you properly?

OC: Was it going fast? 

EB: er, I mean…

OC: Not me, then! I can trot. What, walk and sit.

EB: Canter?

OC: I can only canter if I'm allowed to scream.

And if, and if Camilla from, from the horse training thing is, is riding alongside me holding my shoulder into the saddle then I'm fine.

EB: That’s amazing! 

OC: I had to learn to side-saddle. I could leave it like that and just let people think, Oh my god, she’s amazing. I just had to sit, in side-saddle. and the thing is, so you sit sideways on the horse and there's a big bit holding that leg, so you can't fall backwards and there's another bit holding that leg, so you can't fall forward. So you're just wedged. It's easy to sit and to just walk. It would be tricky I think if you have to go any faster, I could only go round in circles. 

EB: Do, knowing how much she loved that kind of private family countryside of things when she's paraded out there as the public figure, does she enjoy that or like that? Do you think she feels comfortable with it?

OC: I mean, not knowing her or being her, this is totally made up, but I think she is incredibly good at her job. So that's, that's the bit that allows her to then have her private bit, but it's her job. She wears bright colours so that the people at the back can see her.  She's good at going: no I'm going to do this and I'm going to do it very well. 

EB: Yeah. 

OC: Cause this is what, what I'm here to do. So I think that's what it is. And takes pride in doing it well. Yeah, she really does it well.

EB: She's extraordinary

OC: Yeah.

EB: Fagan, and that whole episode. 

OC: The break in at the palace? 

EB: Yeah, as we said, we don’t know what went on and what was said and stuff specifically.

OC: I really remember that breaking in the news though, and there were diagrams of where he got in and, and apparently, he sat on the bed and talked to her and she just had to keep him talking until someone came in. And I really remember that. And I remember as a kid going that's so brave. 

EB: Yeah. 

OC: I mean, they must have security lessons or something. Look, if someone scary is there, keep them calm, talk them down. 

EB: Yeah.

OC: And I didn't hear it, I've heard of it second hand: an amazing doctor, I think who was traumatized by the war zones he had been working in and he went to dinner at the Palace. Is that right? Did he hear that? 

EB: Oh, no. Yeah. 

OC: And he, he suddenly it was all too much. The juxtaposition between where he was, and how close, sitting next to the queen and she just called the dogs in, can we have the dogs please? And they fed the dogs.

So there was a distraction. She just knew there's something, she's very wise. She's good with people. She knows what to do in a, in a difficult situation. 

EB: One of her massive strengths is that her how, her compassion with her people in a way, you know, whatever situation that is. Because if you think back to when she first became queen and she went on that massive tour and she spent that whole time being out there

OC: And did every appointment, didn't miss anything. This is my job.

EB: You don't really do much kind of deep dive prep on things?

OC: Not unless it's really, unless I think I can't find it without that. I rely very much on gut and instinct and, and if I don't feel like I've got that, then I'll go and do some more. 

EB: And for me, the Emma, with Diana as well, I was such a…

OC: See I think that’s much harder because we don't hear the queen much. We don't, we see her in stills photographs and things. So it's my job easier, but for Emma much harder.

EB: Really? 

OC: I think so. I think there's a lot more of, we know her head movements and her, we've heard her interviewed, we've seen her papped more. So we've seen what she looks like when she's thinks she's free.

EB: Yeah. When you saw her for the first time, Emma, as Diana, what was your reaction? 

OC: Just, I can't believe somebody walked into the room that was, looked like her. And is that good.

EB: The cheeks and…

OC: She’s amazing. She's brilliant. 

EB: Like you say, we know so much about her from pictures and footage and stuff as well, but I really want to know about those relationships, her relationship with the queen and that relationship with the rest of the family and with Phillip, you know, when she goes up to Balmoral, and I believe that was Emma's first…

OC:  Yeah

EB: …shoot day as well, which is such a lovely kind of irony in a way that sort of first day with family.

OC: And we were all standing around watching it's a bit. Ooh. Cause when she walks back well, yeah, with the stag. 

EB: With the stag

OC: And we’re all there like an audience. Yeah. Yeah. Poor cow, she did brilliantly. 

EB: We've been lucky enough to be on set. And, when we came down to Salisbury to see you before the work that goes into the production: for you having that, the real place, so to speak, there for you as a playground, to be in and stuff. How much does that help?

OC: Helps enormously! I mean, the sets they build on the stages in studio are incredible, you’ve seen them, so on one side, it's like double sided, sticky tape, and a bit of cardboard and you walk in and you're in the Britannia yacht, but going into the real buildings, it does, I don't know, instils something in you sort of stand a bit taller and, 

It's an enormous privilege as well, to see, see inside these houses. 

EB: Yeah. 

OC: And see some of the paintings and most of the places are open to the public, but we get to go there and it's just us it's…

EB: Yeah. 

OC: It's a real treat. And just the history it's dripping with history. Every corner. 

EB: Yeah. 

OC: I love it. Love all that. 

EB: We haven't talked about Josh

OC: I love Josh!

They know that you betray your wife… 

…Then might I suggest you start to behave like one!

EB: You know, Charles in particular in season four, I mean…

OC: Poor old Josh spend every scene, just looking, you know, like he’d been slapped in the face with a wet fish. 

EB: Yeah. He’s an extraordinary young actor. Have you enjoyed your time with him on screen? 

OC: Oh my god, so much. There's so much humility, which I think is the trick. I don't think he has any idea. He's so marvellous to watch and he completely just becomes whoever he’s playing, but it's never, it doesn't involve heartache and he's just there. And the second the cameras have stopped, he goes: right who wants to play a game? And you go: Oh, you were just really heart-breaking! And you…it's absolutely there at his fingertips. 

EB: Wow. 

OC: I think he's wonderful. 

EB: Yeah. We left season three, obviously with this extraordinary scene with you and Helena, but what's really nice in this season, as well is you see Elizabeth still relying on her family for help and advice.

OC: Yeah.

EB: But I love watching you two together on screen.

OC: I love our scenes together. We do sort of look after each other. It's hilarious. Pick up after each other. And you know, she has, we believe in different things, we tease each other about it constantly, sort of you’re sitting in the wrong place. You weren't sitting in the wrong place come here in instead, just get up, just coming out, talk to each other like sisters. Nagging.

EB: Yeah. Did you know each other well before hand?

OC: No not at all.

EB: Oh, wow.

OC: We just completely fell into it. Yeah. 

EB: And literally fall into it on the first day of working together. 

OC: Yeah. Just sort of looked at each other’s eyes and went, yeah. Great. This is gonna be great. You know how sometimes you just, you know when you’re going to get on.

EB: Yeah yeah yeah.

EB: Now, you're about to pass the Baton on as well. 

OC: Yes! 

EB: When did you know? 

OC: At the beginning of four. 

EB: Did you?! 

OC: Yeah. 

EB: Amazing. Did Peter tell you? 

OC: No. Somebody told me at one of Peter's dinner parties. And I won't say who, but, um, yeah

EB: Initials? No! 

OC: I said, who is it? And they just told me, and I went: I didn’t expect you to tell me, Oh now I've got to not tell anyone.

EB: You know how she feels cause you were there in terms of, you know, Claire passing on to you, how does it feel to be passing on a role? 

OC: Such an honor. I'm so pleased its her!

EB: Yeah, she'll be great. 

OC: I want to come back though. There’s no way we can do a scene together is that it's just…Can you think of a way? Write in listeners, if you could think of a way. Um, in the mirror? Maybe that's passing on,

EB: Oh in the same way with the stamp

OC: Yeah. Yeah. 

EB: Could be the mirror. That's a great idea. 

OC: Isn't it? 

EB: Yeah. Have you spoken to Imelda? 

OC: No. 

EB: What would your words of wisdom be to her? 

OC: I don’t know! It’s Imelda Staunton. Do what you do Imelda. I think you'll be all right. 

EB: I mean, it must be, feel quite sad to then, that it's I know that you said like it's two years and I know I'm done and I'm kind of off and stuff, but I guess that final day of filming with the crew and everybody's well, yeah.

OC: Um, I've done it for quite a long time now, you know, there's a reason you've got a handful of friends from, from different parts of your life. It's because they're the ones who really wants to stick with. 

EB: Yeah. 

OC: And people get really sad and teary at the end of a job. And I've had a lovely time and people I love will come with me and that's okay. And everyone, if you're there on the last day, and if I'm sobbing, I'm going to be so embarrassed. But I think it's quite a joyful thing. We've had a great time. 

EB: Yeah. 

OC: You're moving on. You're going to, it's lovely. 

EB: And it's nice that it's continuing on as well. 

OC: Yeah, exactly. It's not the total end.

EB: Yeah.

And so here we are at the end of season four of The Crown and almost the end of the season of the podcast. Now, as you’ll know, if you’ve followed The Crown since season one, the whole cast customarily changes each two seasons as we move through history. So before we say goodbye for now, let's take one final trip back to Peter Morgan's house, because I wanted to hear about preparing for the next two seasons of The Crown.

EB: Where are you with writing in the next two seasons?

PM: I've got all the pieces on the floor. I had a map, a roadmap for what I thought the seasons should be, and then I wrote it and now I'm stripping it to pieces again and starting again, not all over, but…

EB: Is everyone cast in their roles before you start writing?

PM: No. Imelda Staunton obviously is cast. I think as long as I've got the queen, I know. Yeah? As long as I've got her, I feel pretty confident. And of course we were lucky in this instance because we've got the Duke of Edinburgh and we got princess Margaret we've got Princess Diana and so forth.

EB: Can you tell me a little bit about Imelda Staunton and, for you, why she was the right person for these last two seasons?

PM: There’s no interesting way of answering the question, except I'd never, I think really early on, I'd imagined who the three would be. Going way back even to 2014. There was obviously a period of time where we hadn't found Claire Foy, but I think I knew that if the show would continue, I think I knew that Olivia would be my first choice and Imelda Staunton would be my first choice.

The whole thing revolves around the queen. The queen is everything in the show and who the queen is and the way she, her character radiates outwards, both as an actor and her role is absolutely critical for the stability of the show. All I can say is I've been sleeping very well with the idea of Imelda doing it. Even when we were chatting on zoom the other day, she did a couple of, she broke into it a little bit and I was like, Oh, this is going to be good, it's going to be really good!

I'm Edith Bowman and my special thanks to our guests on this episode, Peter Morgan, Gillian Anderson, Annie Sulzberger and Olivia Coleman.

The Crown: The Official Podcast is produced by Netflix and Somethin’ Else, in association with Left Bank pictures. 

Production from Left Bank Pictures by Georgina Brown, Florence Haddon-Cave and Andy Harries. With special thanks to Annie Sulzberger, Georgina Pickford, Jodie Brown, Meriel Sheibani-Clare, Daniel Janes, Anna Basista and Oona O’Beirn.

This series was created by Somethin’ Else. The Executive Producer is Chris Skinner. The Producer is Zoe Edwards and the Assistant Producer is Michael Dale, with additional production from Steve Ackerman, Shahlaa Tahira and Ella McLeod. The Sound Engineer is Josh Gibbs.

Music is by Hans Zimmer and Martin Phipps.