The Crown: The Official Podcast

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Philip: There have always been the dazzling Windsors and the dull ones.

…

Philip: Dazzling, brilliant, individualistic and the dangerous.

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

Before we made this podcast I loved watching The Crown but definitely took for granted the amount of work that goes into it even before a script is written.

When I was first asked to host this series, I was thoroughly excited to be taken behind the curtain to really explore and celebrate all these hugely talented crafts men and women, both behind and in front of the camera.

And I don’t know if youre like me but…Having researched content in the past…spending time chatting with all these people.

Having now covered all ten episodes of the third season, we have a few treats in store for you in this special episode.

I spoke with Peter Morgan: writer, creator and showrunner. I also paid a visit to Helena Bonham Carter, and we spoke about how she so effortlessly seemed to embrace the indelible Princess Margaret.

HBC: I mean, I do everything because I love all the, you know, research stuff and excavating and I feel like I'm a bit of a detective. I've got a file somewhere you can look at it. It's really a vision, yes, of craziness.

But first…

I hopped on a train to the English countryside, where the Crown were on location at a stately home, filming for Buckingham Palace. The house was massive, surrounded by trucks, equipment and many busy crew bodies. There, in a quiet room between scenes, I got the chance to have a chat with the Queen herself, Olivia Colman. The house was chilly, as these old homes usually are, and Olivia was in full costume, including a very fetching hair net…

O: Hi. Your own little stuido!

E: Nice and cosy and away from all the madness. Is that your hot water bottle?

O: It's a plug in hot water bottle

E: And if you hold it there it keeps your boobs warm.

O: Oh yeah! Totally obsessed. Because you can plug it in while you're brushing your teeth. It turns itself off and it's ready as soon as you want to get into bed it's ready.

E:I love your net

O: Thanks. Thank you. I've got a pale pink as well and a pale blue. Very flattering on the skin tone I find.

E: Here we are in a lovely stately home in the countryside which is doubling up as Buckingham Palace.

O: Yes.

E: With squeaky chairs.

O: Yes. Sorry about that.

E: That's alright. It's expected in a stately home. Thank you for the small guided tour through the stately home.

O: Ah you're welcome anytime

E: Rembrandt's mother

O: Yeah, I do I really pay attention when we come to a new house and I love it. It's a proper privilege though to go and have a look around and, yeah

E: Becoming a tour guide for guests on set.

O: Yeah

Edith: Olivia will know take you round.

Olivia: Yeah, I've enjoyed it so much.

E: What would you say to that phone call when this was first kind of floated around? Or

O: I think it was my agent who phoned me and told me and she was trying to be because it was loud speaker in the car and so she didn't know who was listening. She was trying to do it in code. You've been offered. You know a queen, Oh right! What, play? No no television. Right. Okay. All right. It was a bit like trying to do charades over the phone. What, The Crown Lindy, The Crown. Oh my god the Crown. Yes. Yes, please. I was very uncool. And then I went for, I think a coffee with some of the grown ups.

O: And again, very uncool, I think they thought was Helen. That was cool. And she wants to see a script. And Peter said, well Olivia didn't ask for a script. Well I'm not Olivia said Helena. Yeah, yeah.

E:Why do you think you said yes. Why did you jump in?

O: Erm didn't really think it through? I think I never wanted to like it, which is weird. I felt like it. When I first saw the posters everywhere. Well don't make me like stuff. Everyone says, you gotta watch that film best film. That books the best book.

E: Yeah.

O: No. And because everyone said it was amazing. There were posters everywhere. So that's that's pushing it too much. And then of course, watched it and

O: obsessed within seconds, obsessed with Claire Foy. And so when they said the Queen, yeah, but actually, it's I know actors will always play, you know, parts that have been played before by other actors. That's what we do in theatre all the time. But it's something that was something maybe I should have thought more carefully about. And, and it's, it is quite a responsibility and people are very passionate about it in all directions. And I found that quite hard because to me, it's an acting job, and I'm having a lovely time. But people are so opinionated about it.

O: It's a piece of fiction piece of drama about some extraordinary human beings. Yeah, not a documentary and once you're in it, you realise that everyone has an opinion about it, and that's quite difficult

E: Do you love her?.

O: The queen. Yeah, totally.

E: Yeah. Did you love it before you started it?

O: Never really thought about It. But erm, yeah I do now. Funny init. So almost no one alive now doesn't remember her being on the throne, which is fascinating.

E: Yeah, she's extraordinary. Did you speak to Claire about it

O: only briefly, which is what to what do you think, she said it's a really happy job. Right. But that's, that's all I.

E:: Yeah,

O: life's too short to have a really?

E: Yeah,

O: If you do a job. You don't want to do it with miserable people

E: Well, especially when it's this long.

O: Yes, exactly.

O: As soon as you're sort of you're on board, they fill up your inbox with every image of the Queen that that's been ever been recorded. And so you get sort of, like an injection of information.

E: Yeah.

O: And I do always sort of maintain that, if the script is good enough it's all there.

E: Yeah.

O: And our job is to put a voice to what the writer wanted.

Edith: Yeah.

O: If the script is bad, that's a whole other thing then. Then you need to really way in and do some homework, try and save yourself.

E: This great team of people that have around you

O: Well exactly half your job's done or three quarters of it for you before you even step out of makeup van really, it makes your job so easy.

E: I wish I could come and hang out at the makeup in the makeup truck because

O: you should

E: I hear it just sounds like so much fun like with you Helena and Tobias in particular. I believe there's disco lights.

O: Oh yeah yeah. And by the way, I bought Sue Sue David, my makeup artist I bought her plug in disco lights. And because there's no real light in there, you can turn all the lights off and have a disco lights and a proper rave it's so much fun. It's a real pick me up after lunch.

E: But Helena's playlists need attention?

O: Oh bless her little heart. She is a wonderful human being. She's good at many things but she's not so good as being a DJ.

E: I love that. I love the idea of you and Tobias.

Olivia: We text each other especially, and Ben Daniels very naughty texting each other while Helena's playing various funny songs. What in the…is this.

E: Skip, skip.

E: What was the first thing you shot

O: The breakfast scene where I'm buttering the toast loudly that was quite fun. We had to reshoot it though

E: buttering it too loud?

O: I don't know I said I think maybe I was buttering in a sort of more like me way

E: Non royal way?

O: I don't know but they did have to come back to it.

E: What's your relationship with the Corgis?

O: Oh I love them but I do love anything fury and one of them's really well behaved and one of them just couldn't give a shit. It's so funny. And sit, sit, sit. Whatever. No runs off.

E: do you have to form like a bit of a relationship with them before you start filming?

O: just I have biscuits in my pocket. Try and make them love me

E: That's what I do with my children.

O: Lego and biscuits in your pockets at all time

E: I spent hours after each episode. Just kind of going did she wear that. It's got these flagpoles of things that you remember from news reports or and you go ah did that actually

O: because now we're it we're certainly or for for you and me was into sort of stuff I can remember.

E: Yeah. Is that weird?

O: It is a bit weird.

E: Yeah, but I mean, from speaking to, you know, Peter and stuff, he's got so sensitive about that, knowing that we're,

O: it's done respectfully and with love and yeah,

E: I have really gotten that sense that from speaking to everybody about this, not a bubble that you're all in but this kind of world that you're all in together making this is something really special.

O: Yeah, it’s a long job. I mean, not compared to you know, sort of 40 years on a soap but to me, it’s a long job. So lucky that we all get on the and the family are in, I get genuinely excited to play games. We’re all sitting in the sitting room and you know, playing parlour games, particularly Josh.

E: Oh yeah. What's the game?

O: fives?

E: fives? Yeah.

O: That was brilliant. For those listening, I'm showing you how to do it, which is not very useful. Yeah, sorry. And he's invented game of games, which is really fun.

E: Okay,

O: We spent hours, hours doing nothing a lot, not really concentrating.

E: Erm I loved hearing you talk about how excited you get about the end part of the day.

O: When It's all a bit of a panic. I love it. It's my favourite bit.

E: Why?

O: You really wake up perk up gotta get it done. Gotta get done. Oh it's so exciting goes back to my days of low budget telly. You got 23 pages to accomplish and that's half an hour to do it and I love it. Yeah, come on. We can do it one shot everybody look the same direction.

E: But let's talk about Jason for a second because this relationship that you have which is both Elizabeth had with, you know, Wilson that was genuine friendship.

O: Yeah,

E: we don't know what went on behind those closed doors

O: no apparently from you know pretty good sources when so the Prime Minister's go to Balmoral every year. And often it's a bit sort of not the most fun and then, but whenever he would go apparently they'd go for their meetings and they'd be peals of laughter and then a drinks trolley would come it would be called for, just got on really well.

E: I love that because everybody assumed that they wouldn't as well

O: yeah. Yeah. And but she's apolitical she doesn't say what know which she feels but it doesn't matter. I suppose I just as characters just really got on.

E: Yeah.

O: I love it

E: yeah. And Tobias. I loved as well talking to him about how he he likes to try things and sometimes he'll like the kiss, which, which was just which wasn't scripted.

O: Yeah. And his little grin as he walked away, which I didn't see until I watched it. Naughty Phillip

E: it must be interesting for you as an and as an actor that you've got a you're playing this character for over certain number of years.

O: Yeah, that's quite nice

E: but then also work with different directors on the same project.

O: Yeah, Is that weird? Or is it nice

O: No it's quite nice. You can also you know if you're going to have an early bath or not depending on who's directing that day.

I'm quite badly behaved. Okay. Oh, do we have to do it again?

E: But this wonderful

O: I do take my job seriously, I promise.

E: Well, we can tell as we watch it. Wanted to talk as well, specifically about the the closing scene in the carriage.

O: Yeah, they do a lot of those shots of just one being in a big space or a little enclosed space, and really sense of a sense of loneliness. And yeah, you're not being part of what everyone else is doing. And also there's shooting the back of the head really gives an impression of just yeah, isolation. So I think it's done very cleverly.

E: have you got a favourite scene you shot so far from season, season three, I know you're doing I know you're in four and it's hard to kind of go back but is there something that you look back on three

O: I did love I found it hard was being a bit bit mean with with Josh in the bedroom after the, when he comes back from Wales

O: And I did love. I loved being able to film all the Porchie episode because she was out and outdoors and happy and with the horses and it's nice being able to smile and and I also love that scene with with Tobias when he comes to give her a kiss and that's so moments of lightness are always

E: yeah

O: lovely even though the Josh one isn't liked but he is a really fun to get your teeth into

QE: Not having a voice is something all of us have to live with.

…

QE: No one

E: yeah I love the scene at Margaret's birthday party as well with everyone around the table. Because it's kind of she's just desperate for everyone to you know,

O: it's that's vicious isn't it?

E: It's a great scene.

O: Yes. Great.

E: She's just and they're all like yeah, isn't Tony the best. You're like shut up what are you talking about? Can't you hear what she's trying? Listen,

O: But you know that it's sort of all seen that we've got he's, really not that bad. Don't know what happens behind closed doors. That must be awful. When everyone's going Oh, no, come on.

E: What do you think their relationship was like as sisters?

O: From what we can know what we found out

E: Yeah

O: they adored each other, you know, yeah. And there's the only they were the only two that knew what it was like in their family and, and I think they had a really lovely sort of childhood by sounds of it and there's books. The notes say that they've said that and they were schooled together. They played together they really mainly had each other. Not a huge group of people.

E: Yeah.

O: So they were very devoted to each other.

E: It's that is that line in that in the bedroom scene where she where you say, You're the most important?

O: Yeah, I love that scene as well. That's that I think it's one of my favourite. And for me, it's quite hard to once there's a bit of emotion, I'm blurghhh I'm quite find it quite hard to do it daintily.

Q: for the record, I think there are many things you are good at

…

Q: it would be unbearable

E: thank you for your time, particularly in the fact that you're filming and you've just rehearsed a scene and you're just off to shoot one.

O: You're welcome. Thank you so much for coming all the way over here.

E: I'm going to go and by one of those lovely

O: Oh get one. muff warmer things. Maybe not the right choice of words. Like um, now leave it. stop stop

I thoroughly enjoyed speaking with the incredible Olivia Colman but we couldn’t finish off the season without spending time with her inegmatic on-screen little sister…

It was a chilly London morning when Helena Bonham Carter invited us into the her beautiful home to have a good old natter about Princess Margaret.

E: Helena, thank you for allowing us to come to your wonderful house and your island of couch

H: It is a big couch isn't it

E: it's comfortable

H: Yeah.

E: And we're going to be here chatting about the Crown. Yeah for days

H: For 3 months

E: Can we please cuz I could. Thinking about Princess Margaret and if you really try to hone in on her as a person and trying to get to the person, the real person and and kind of how you what you thought of her?

H: it's very difficult to to get to the heart of somebody so phenomenally well known and has such a received narrative.

E: Yeah.

H: And everyone seems to have an opinion on them even though they've never actually met her. So I had the same problem with Queen mum in a way. And Elizabeth Taylor, I think the only way I mean I do everything because I love all the, you know, research stuff and excavating and I feel like I'm a bit of a detective. You go through

E: love that

H: sifting information and Tim used to always go Oh for God's sake you're not writing an autobiography, you're just pretending to be somebody else.

E: Yeah, I need to get

H: Yes. I want to get

E: The bits

H: I went through a whole different levels and my attack I've got a file somewhere you can look at it crazy. It's really a vision. Yes, of craziness.

But, I read the biographies. I met the friends. The friends are the crucial because they're the ones who really knew her so you couldn't go to someone who actually knew. And in fact, Anne Tennant's book, she was she almost wrote it out of frustration. All of her own life is as interesting as Margaret's. But about Princess Margaret because she's so sick as a friend of people making judgments about her. When very few people and people who had never met her or met her for a second,

E: yeah,

H: you know

E: and made a judgement,

H: and made a judgement and that's, that's the, the curse or the point of, you know, being the curse that comes with being famous in the sense that people will think I've met that person. And if you're not on for that split second then in their their heads that's what you are.

H: And I think Margaret was definitely very erratic in mood and she was utterly honest she didn't put on a facade. Unlike the Queen mom was brilliant in putting on a facade.

E: Yes. She kind of floated through everything

H: she floated and she put on a great act of softness and marshmallow. Calm and underneath was pure steel. And my aunt was great help she's a graphologist so she analyses handwriting.

E: Oh wow

H: she did. She do both people's handwriting and that's what she said about Queen mum. Absolute. key to her was that she was a great at being famous because she could put on an act. And she was she could do being Queen she could do being famous. A lot of people who are famous can't really, doesn't sit well. with them

E: Yeah

H: and they're too vulnerable and Margaret was vulnerable. So there's a lot there's a lot of thinking that she was very like her father. You know she had a lot of anxiety. And the Queen mum and the Queen are more of the same ilk.

Yeah. What did you Aunt say about Margaret handwriting.

H: she saw, I've got it somewhere the analysis, beautiful handwriting. She was very creative. She was very clever. She was very cultivated and cultured but she could see how she lost her way as she got older, probably through drink and through emotional stuff that hadn't really been sorted.

My astrologer because I got various witches that I go to, she was amazing. She was the one who said no matter who she was, she would be incapable of not saying what was in her head.

E: I'd like to be more a bit more like that

H: What, saying, not editing.

E: Yeah,

H: you wouldn't be doing what you're doing. You wouldn't have got very far.

E: That's true. Because you see those scenes where, when you know, she goes to ask for oh let me have purpose. Let me I've found something that I want to And, and then the Queen speaks to Philip about it and he's like, Oh, we don't know what she's going to say, you know? Is that

H: She's a liability.

E: Yeah.

H: What's so nice is that she's incredibly entertaining to watch and but, you know when she was alive a lot of people really loved to dislike her. And now she's got this posthumous affection.

E: I've never thought about.

H: Yeah, watch the Queen getting from A to B. It's like, errrrrr. It's not because she's old because she's as fast as anything. But in public, you move slowly and sometimes it was hilarious with Margaret, who was incredibly quick witted.

E: Yeah,

H: but she'd move sometimes that would bleed into her daily life that she'd look around very, very slowly. It would be like Yes, ma'am. Do you want to have tea and it would be like, there's always a pause before a dramatic pause. And then, what?

E: I love it. is it an absolute luxury as an actor to have the opportunity to play a character for such a long space of time?

H: It's perfect. It's perfect for us actors now to have this proliferation of telly where suddenly it's like character development, you know, quick story in a big action movie. But the biggest luxury is being been written by somebody so brilliant. So you as an actor often get the credit for actually what's written on the page.

E: There are some extraordinary moments throughout this season. That whole episode and you know that those scenes with erm Lyndon B Johnson.

H: That's fun.

E: Yeah

H: I mean, of course, I've had various people already. It's funny now. It's quite exhausting. But it's all the friends that I went to and are texting me saying what they think are apt what's not, you know, I’m going like, of course I'm championing your dear friend who's gone. But a lot of it is fiction. So I've had one go like. Lyndon b johnson scene absolutely absurd.

And of course they didn't sing you know, and do dirty limericks she would never seen said vagina. Well, no, but this is inspired by it isn't but also, I think she'd be her knowing her having fun.

E: Yeah,

H: she had a sense of humour about herself, I think.

E: Yeah,

H: huge. So she would have wherever she is. I don't think she would have minded that much. But I don't know I'd hate to presume

E: I love when you sing around the piano I love that scene

H: what the just one of those things?

E: Yeah it’s just great

Margaret singing

H: I love that song. I love the opportunity to sing. I love doing it and I just thought this is she's a bit like me that we're not great singers but she was probably better than me, but we just love doing it and we force everybody's subject everyone to listening

E: Well like sing like no one's watching. We all should do more of that.

H: Yeah, we should.

E: Yeah.

H: And she loved her. She really would sing and play to the small hours pretty much every night. That's what Charles actually in real life when she died did a lovely piece to camera which was real tribute to her.

E: Yeah.

H: He loved her but said the best time that I’ll always remember my Aunt, Aunty Margo at the keys Cigarette whiskey. And that was where she was happy. fiddling around with the tunes. It's just great. She should have been at Ronnie Scott's she'd have loved it.

E: Yeah. Margaret the jazz singer.

H: Yeah. She just loved it.

E: When she meets Roddy and and also Mr. Treadaway was brilliant.

H: I mean, yeah, really is he really gets captures him and he's got the manners and the charm and the love and the affection warmth. Yeah, but he's also up for it.

E: Yeah,

H: it was. He's up for it and he knows what he's doing. And, I met the real Roddy here actually

E: did you

H: With Harry Yeah. Well, he's lovely. He's really a lovely man. And he said we both really found each other at the right time. We were both lost and he said she gave him a bracelet in the shape of a life jacket.

H: And that's what they were for each other for eight years. She said we're both sort of rejects this is what he said from our family in a way we felt whether that was we would like the black sheep or the ones that didn't, hadn't done quite well enough.

H: Yeah

H: We both felt not good enough. And so we helped each other. It was genuine.

M: What nice hands you’ve got

…

R: your smile

E: That's amazing to have that access to, you know, the truth of that.

H: Yeah. I felt very lucky. But I also think it was a real tribute to her that every friend was very happy to talk to me for hours about her. And I think for them, it was comforting because they could bring her back into the room and talk about and not be defensive because they knew that I wasn't out to I was out to love her.

E: Respect her.

H: Yeah, totally respect her.

It seems only right to end as we began, back with writer, creator and showrunner Peter Morgan. I thought we would start with the impossible: trying to get him to choose his favourite bits of season three.

I mean, you are like asking me to choose between one of my children, you know, because by the time you finished every episode you you've tried to fall in love with it, you've done everything you can to fall in love with it, you know, so they all get a lot of attention.

But my favourite episode is probably Episode Seven, the one about the moon landing, directed by Jess Jess Hobbes. And I say that only because it's so unlikely and sometimes, you know, you look at an episode that you've written and you wonder where that came from. And that's kind of nice when you don't know where it came from. And you're slightly baffled by where it came from.

E: It's a wonderful kind of exploration into Philip.

P: Yeah,

E: in that episode as well. And you know, and and him having a moment in his life where so many questions are raised following the death of his mum and all that kind of thing as well. It's kind of what she leaves and questions him on, you know his faith and his belief and what drives him yet it's really powerful episode

E: So you were saying you don't think about that at all.

P: About what?

E: about next season? What season?

E: What can you tell us about season four?

P: I've tended to I've tended to use the time span of political change as the as the rule with which to chop up as it were the sausage, so the particular sausage that season four is is Margaret Thatcher and and so it starts in 1979. So we end season three and we skip James Callaghan. So I'm sorry for the you know for, for not representing all prime ministers, but We go straight to touch here we go to 79.

E: Her twin. As you described her.

P: Her Twin, yes, the Queen's twin, I mean Thatcher and the Queen born within six months of one another. Two very similar and yet very different women, you know, so that and I think I do think if you have an arc or or a central conflict at the heart of Season Four, it is Thatcher and the queen who really is the head of state.

E: Can't wait.

P: Yeah,

E: Well you've done an amazing job. It's brilliant. Congratulations.

P: Ah thanks.

E: Thank you for your time.

Now that we are on the eleventh episode of the series, I am quite sad if I’m being honest. I have been thoroughly impressed by the detail and dedication that goes into making The Crown, hugely grateful for the opportunity to speak with So many brilliant and entertaining people. I hope you’ve enjoyed it as much as me.

The Crown, The Official Podcast is produced by Netflix and Somethin’ Else, in association with Left Bank Pictures. From Netflix, are Rae Votta and Katie Hundere. From Left Bank Pictures are Georgina Brown, Florence Haddon-Cave and Andy Harries. From Somethin’ Else are executive producers Steve Ackerman and Chris Skinner. The producers are Shannon Vandermark and Zoe Edwards, mix engineer is Josh Gibbs with production assistance from Michael Dale, Rosie Merotra and Grace Laiker. Main title music is by Hans Zimmer and all other music is by Martin Phipps. Special thanks to Annie Sulzberger, Daniel Janes, Oona O Beirn and Rachael Ellis.

For those listeners still looking for more Crown content do check out Robert Lacey’s second companion book to The Crown, which is out now. Check back us in the new year fore more Crown news.

Thanks for joining us.