The Crown is set to return for its sixth and final season on Netflix next month.
The hit drama based on the royal family during the reign of Queen Elizabeth II will conclude in two parts, the first of which premieres on 16 November and the second on 14 December.
The same core cast from season five reprise their roles for the final series, with some new additions.
This means Imelda Staunton will round out the last iteration of Elizabeth II after taking over from Olivia Colman (seasons three and four), who took over from Claire Foy (seasons one and two).
It was revealed earlier this year that all three versions of the monarch will feature in the final season as a “tribute to the late Queen”.
The forthcoming season has promised to cover Princess Diana’s death “sensitively” and will also feature the marriage between the now-King Charles III and Queen Camilla.
Kate Middleton will also be depicted in the series for the first time as the inception of her romance with Prince William at St Andrews University is explored.
Here’s how the cast of season six of The Crown stacks up against its real-life counterparts.
Ed McVey and Meg Bellamy as Prince William and Kate Middleton
Ed McVey and Meg Bellamy (left) and Prince William and Kate Middleton— (Netflix/Getty Images)
Newcomers Ed McVey and Meg Bellamy will portray the blossoming romance between Prince William and Kate Middleton.
The two met while studying at St Andrews University in Scotland. Nineteen-year-old Bellamy makes her acting debut as Princess Kate after having read about the casting on social media and submitting an audition tape.
Luther Ford as Prince Harry
Luther Ford (left) and Prince Harry in 2005— (Getty Images)
Luther Ford will take over from child actor Fflyn Edwards in part two of The Crown’s sixth season.
Earlier this year, it was reported that season six will depict the infamous incident in which Prince Harry wore a Nazi uniform to a costume party.
Imelda Staunton as Queen Elizabeth II
Imelda Staunton (left) and Queen Elizabeth II— (Netflix/PA)
Imelda Staunton has taken on the role of the Queen in her late sixties and early seventies as she tackles the breakdown of her children’s marriages and the scandals that plagued the royal family in the Nineties and early Noughties.
“I’ve been living with her for a long time so, if anything, I felt more comfortable this time,” Staunton said ahead of the new series. “I love her stillness and her ability to not be thrown by everything that must have constantly – throughout her whole life – gone on around her.”
Jonathan Pryce (left) and Prince Philip— (Netflix/PA)
Jonathan Pryce returns as Prince Philip. “[Phillip’s] a highly educated, intelligent intellectual with great interests in the natural world and in the sciences. I think I wanted to present more of that side of him,” Pryce previously told Vanity Fair. “I also grew to like him and realised he had a sense of humor and a sense of fun.”
Dominic West as Prince Charles
Dominic West (left) and King Charles III— (Netflix/Getty)
Dominic West plays Prince Charles, now King Charles III, in possibly the most dramatic period his life. “I talked to a lot of people who have met [Charles] because he’s met a lot of people, he’s met probably more than anyone except the Queen and Prince Philip. Almost everyone has extremely warm, kind things to say about him,” West said.
Elizabeth Debicki as Diana, Princess of Wales
Elizabeth Debicki (left) and Diana, Princess of Wales— (Netflix/Getty)
The Crown season six depicts a relationship blossoming between Princess Diana and Dodi Fayed before her fateful car accident, which occurred in the early hours of 31 August 1997.
“I think it’s a really unique challenge as an actor, to portray those days,” Debicki said of filming the gut-wrenching final season. “I really just trusted in [showrunner] Peter [Morgan]’s emotional blueprint that he created for us to follow. It’s his interpretation and I think it made emotional sense to me, so I clung to that. Because, obviously, it’s devastating and it’s fraught and we can never know.”
Lydia Leonard and Bertie Carvel as Cherie and Tony Blair
Lydia Leonard and Bertie Carvel (left) and Tony and Cherie Blair— (Netflix/Getty Images)
Bertie Carvel appeared towards the end of season five as prime minister Tony Blair as he takes over office from John Major (Jonny Lee Miller).
The Doctor Foster star told The Independent earlier this year that he took the role “without seeing any scripts”.
Claudia Harrison and Theo Fraser Steele as the Princess Royal and Sir Timothy Laurence
Claudia Harrison and Theo Fraser Steele (left) and the Princess Royal and Sir Timothy Laurence— (Netflix/Getty)
In the Nineties, Anne, the Princess Royal met and fell in love with Timothy Laurence, who was then an equerry for Queen Elizabeth II. Claudia Harrison and Theo Fraser Steele are expected to reprise their roles in season six.
Olivia Williams as Camilla Parker Bowles
Olivia Williams (left) and Queen Camilla— (Netflix/PA)
Olivia Williams looks uncanny as Camilla Parker Bowles in The Crown. During a roundtable discussion with the costume designers and hair and makeup lead of The Crown, Sidonie Roberts, associate costume designer and head buyer said of Williams: “She’s quite chic isn’t she, Olivia Williams? Because some of the stuff we were putting on Camilla … it absolutely goes to show you how much the wig and makeup help us.”
Lesley Manville as Princess Margaret
Lesley Manville (left) and Princess Margaret— (Netflix/PA)
Lesley Manville returns as a lively Princess Margaret in The Crown’s final season.
In a 2022 interview with The Independent, Manville said of dramatising the real-life royals: “We don’t know, so we have to invent. That’s what writers do. That’s what Peter Morgan has done. That’s what Shakespeare did. What actors do is interpret what a writer has written. But I think The Crown is very sympathetic to the royal family. It humanises them, and it shows that if you prick them they bleed like anybody else.”
Salim Dau as Mohamed Al-Fayed
Salim Dau (left) and Mohamed Al-Fayed— (Netflix/Getty)
Salim Dau shines in his role as billionaire businessman Mohamed Al-Fayed. “I adore this character. I love him so much and I enjoy portraying him because I love him. In this series, he is so human and he’s so colourful,” Dau said. “He’s hard sometimes, very hard, funny, like a child - with his son he’s sometimes very, very hard but he has plenty of love for his son and the audience will see that and will feel exactly what I’m talking about.”
Khalid Abdalla as Dodi Fayed
Khalid Abdalla (left) and Dodi Fayed— (Netflix/PA)
Khalid Abdalla’s Dodi Fayed appears once again in season six. His character is set to play a more prominent role this time around as a romance forms between him and Princess Diana.
Last year, Abdalla told The Independent that the Egyptian film producer has “never really been mourned because he’s never really been known”.
