New ‘The Crown’ footage reveals ‘horrible’ secrets of Season 5
Netflix just released a revealing behind-the-scenes featurette of “The Crown” to fully whet fan appetites before the controversial upcoming season.
Season 5 premieres Nov. 9, so the streamer dropped a clip on Wednesday introducing the new cast and some compelling behind-the-scenes footage.
The clip starts off with a brief glimpse of Queen Elizabeth (Imelda Staunton) giving her famous 1992 speech where she called it her “annus horribilis.”
Her infamous “horrible year” saw a fire at Windsor Castle as well as the breakdown of three out of her four children’s marriages.
Other scenes that viewers will see in full when the season premieres include Prince Philip (Jonathan Pryce) mulling over several harsh headlines about the royal family he’s spotted in the newspapers.
Another hot shot features then-Prince Charles (Dominic West) arguing with his queen mum over when it will be his time to finally become king. The matriarch and her royal offspring also trade barbs about the breakdown of his marriage to Princess Diana.
Elizabeth Debicki shines in her scenes, replacing Season 4’s Emma Corrin as an older Diana. Some snippets reveal her basking in the adoration of the press as well as the limelight in several of her iconic looks — including her famous “revenge dress.”
There is even some new scenes of Diana and Charles with their kids, a young Prince Harry and Prince William together as a family.
Diana’s “Panorama” interview with Martin Bashir in 1995 is also seen, where she uttered the famous line, “There were three of us in this marriage. So it was a bit crowded.”
Charles’ mistress-turned-Queen Consort Camilla Parker Bowles is shown cozying up to him in the teaser, while also feeling plagued by the media scrutiny about her.
The cast described how the new season is different from the past four, and the challenges that the royal family will endure as it unfolds.
“Season 5 plays against a period of real criticism and uncertainty,” creator and writer Peter Morgan said in the clip. “It’s quite shocking how overtly critical people were of the monarchy at the time.”
“[The season] does start with people questing ‘Do we need the monarchy? Do we need the queen?’ And she has to ride that particular storm,” Staunton noted.
West added: “The great tensions you see in this season that Peter has written about is between this 1950s outlook on the monarchy, public life and marriage and the modern day and how they clash.
“Diana really represents the modern day — and Charles is caught between the two.”