Olivia Colman Confirms ‘The Crown’ Season 3 Has Wrapped

Fans are eager for a new season of The Crown, especially because it will be their first glimpse of the new cast in all of the lead roles.

Radio Times says that Olivia Colman (Broadchurch) will be taking over the role of Queen Elizabeth and Tobias Menzies (Outlander) will play the new Prince Philip. Filming with the new cast started last July and finished principal photography in February.

Colman confirmed that they had to do some reshoots, but that the new cast will start shooting Season 4 this summer.

“We’ve just finished season three a week ago, and when I go back I’ve got to do some reshoots. We start again with season four in August,” she said.

After they shoot Season 4, the cast will be changing once again. The third and fourth seasons will span the years from 1964-76. Tobias Menzies, who is new to the series, explains that the upcoming season will include the Apollo 11 moon landing, and focus on the prince’s reaction to the monumental event.

“We’ve just been shooting a really interesting episode which was all tied into the moon landings in ’69. [Showrunner] Peter [Morgan] has taken this angle that Philip gets very absorbed by the heroism of these men compared to what maybe he hasn’t done with his own life.”

Producer Suzanne Mackie spoke at the BFI & Radio Times Television Festival saying that viewers will get their first look at Camilla Parker Bowles, the birth of Prince Edward, and Prince Charles’ investiture and coronation as the Prince of Wales in 1969.

Josh O’Connor (The Durrells of Corfu), who will play Prince Charles as a young adult, will be shown while he is a student at Cambridge, he says.

“We start off with Charles at Cambridge University, that’s where we bring him into the series,” O’Conner revealed. “This is where we scale a significant part of his life which I feel so honoured and excited to tell the story. And tell a very different side of the story that we may not have seen or have known about.”

Tobias Menzies says that when he learned that he got the role of Prince Philip, he intently started listening to the Duke of Edinburgh’s speaking voice in an effort to get it down. He says he wants to look like him, sound like him, and move like him, and he’s been studying him intensely.

“I’ve gone slightly crazy just listening to him and listening to him,” Menzies explained.