Last month, during an appearance on Bravo’s Watch What Happens Live, host Andy Cohen asked Claire Foy and her co-star Matt Smith whether Helen Mirren is going to “play the later queen” on their addictive Netflix series The Crown.
“It’s definitely not a done deal, but I’d put money on it,” replied Foy, who plays an earlier version of Queen Elizabeth II on the show. “Do it now, go. Gamble, gamble. It would be amazing.”
Mirren, of course, was awarded the Best Actress Oscar in 2006 for her dazzling portrayal of a later version of Queen Elizabeth II in The Queen, which was penned by The Crown creator Peter Morgan. She reprised her role as Queen Elizabeth II in the West End play The Audience in 2013, also courtesy of Morgan, and later brought it to Broadway in 2015.
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The Daily Beast spoke to the incomparable Mirren on Tuesday evening in support of her Golden Globe-nominated performance in the upcoming film The Leisure Seeker, opening March 9th. In it she plays the cancer-stricken Ella, who, along with her Alzheimer’s-suffering husband John (Donald Sutherland), embarks on a cross-country road trip in a camper to the Florida Keys for one last adventure before they kick the bucket.
When asked whether or not she’ll be appearing on The Crown, Mirren confidently replied, “No, I’m not. No, no. Done with that.”
And there you have it.
Olivia Colman, who should have received an Oscar nod for Tyrannosaur, will play Queen Elizabeth II in Seasons 3 and 4 of The Crown. She’d previously played Queen Elizabeth in the 2012 film Hyde Park on Hudson opposite Bill Murray’s FDR.
Our full interview with the great Helen Mirren will run later this week.
