“The Crown” has found its Prince Philip (again) to play opposite Imelda Staunton’s Queen Elizabeth for the Netflix drama’s final two seasons.
Jonathan Pryce will take over the role from Tobias Menzies, who plays Elizabeth’s husband in Season 3 and 4, the latter of which debuts later this year. Matt Smith played the young Prince Philip during the show’s first two seasons opposite Claire Foy. The fifth and sixth seasons of the Netflix drama will be the show’s last.
Pryce joins Staunton and Lesley Manville, who will play Princess Margaret.
Netflix had initially planned to end the show after the fifth season, before deciding to extend it to six. That means that each version of the cast will have gotten to serve two seasons on the historical drama. “As we started to discuss the storylines for Series 5, it soon became clear that in order to do justice to the richness and complexity of the story we should go back to the original plan and do six seasons,” Creator Peter Morgan said. “To be clear, Series 6 will not bring us any closer to present day – it will simply enable us to cover the same period in greater detail.”
Pryce is known his roles as the High Sparrow in “Game of Thrones,” along with a slew of other films including “Tomorrow Never Dies,” “Glengarry Glen Ross” and “Pirates of the Caribbean.” Most recently, he received an Oscar nomination for his portrayal of Pope Francis in “The Two Popes.”
The upcoming fourth season of “The Crown,” which is expected to debut later this year, will cover Queen Elizabeth and the British royal family during the Princess Diana era. Season 3 of “The Crown,” which launched last November, left off in 1977 at the Queen’s Silver Jubilee.