Netflix series The Crown shows even if you’re an Oscar or Emmy winner, no roles are for keeps

Academy Award recipient Olivia Colman and Emmy winner Claire Foy both played Queen Elizabeth in The Crown, but neither held on to the role

Rather than ageing the cast cosmetically with make-up as the series went on, producers instead choose to recast characters using older actors

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Claire Foy (left) as the young Queen Elizabeth and Olivia Colman as Queen Elizabeth in later years in The Crown. Imelda Staunton will be the third and final actress to portray the British monarch in the Netflix series. Photo: AP

Published: 5:15pm, 14 Nov 2020Updated: 7:05pm, 15 Nov 2020

For viewers, The Crown offers a peek into a modern royal family’s life and times, or at least an engaging dramatisation. For the cast, it’s meant the lofty equivalent of gig work as the Netflix series ticks through the decades.

Claire Foy played Britain’s young Queen Elizabeth for the first two seasons, with Olivia Colman stepping in to chart her middle years last season and in the 10 new episodes out on November 15. Imelda Staunton ascends to the throne for the final two chapters.

When Diana Spencer makes her pivotal entrance this season, largely set in the 1980s, it’s Emma Corrin in the part opposite Josh O’Connor’s Prince Charles. Corrin’s job is one and done: Elizabeth Debicki takes over in seasons five and six as the bound-for-tragedy Princess Diana, opposite a new, yet-to-be-announced Charles.

A role in The Crown is akin to a relay-race baton destined to be handed off, says Helena Bonham Carter, back for her second whirl as tempestuous Princess Margaret. The actor is sandwiched between Vanessa Kirby (seasons one and two) and Lesley Manville, who will take Margaret across the finish line.

(From left) Lesley Manville at the Oscars in Los Angeles in March, 2018, Helena Bonham-Carter portraying Princess Margaret in season three of The Crown, and Vanessa Kirby as a younger Princess Margaret in the Netflix series. Manville will play the royal in the final seasons of the series. Photo: AP

“I’m very sad that it’s over, but it’s time that she was played by somebody else at some point … She’s just a great gift of a part,” Bonham Carter said during a joint interview with Colman and Tobias Menzies, returning as Prince Philip.