The Crown star Jonathan Pryce on the friendship between Prince Philip and Penny Knatchbull

When EW spoke with Jonathan Pryce for our recent cover story on The Crown the actor teased that the relationship between his Prince Philip and Imelda Staunton's Queen Elizabeth would not be all plain sailing in season 5 of the show.

Netflix Jonathan Pryce as Prince Philip and Natascha McElhone as Penny Knatchbull on 'The Crown'

"It was a wonderful relationship, a long and loving marriage, but not without a few hiccups," the actor said.

Now that the season has premiered on Netflix, we know that one big hiccup is prompted by Philip's friendship with Penny Knatchbull, or Lady Romsey, which was her title at the time of the events depicted on the show. Played by Ronin and Californication actress Natascha McElhone, Knatchbull was actually related to Philip, thanks to her marriage to Norton Knatchbull, the grandson of Philip's uncle Lord Mountbatten, who was previously played on The Crown by Charles Dance.

Prince Philip became close to Penny Knatchbull following the death of her daughter Leonora from kidney cancer. As the new season of The Crown details, Philip offered solace to his distant relation and also introduced her to the sport of carriage-driving, with their closeness prompting rumors of an affair. On the show, Pryce's Philip succeeds in convincing the Queen that the pair's friendship is just that, a friendship, and Knatchbull remained close to the Prince. In 2021, she was one of only a few people to attend Philip's funeral because of COVID restrictions.

"Natascha plays Penny Romsey, who is part of the extended royal family by the Mountbattens," Pryce tells EW. "Philip creates a friendship with her based on shared grief. Penny Romsey recently, very recently, lost a daughter to cancer and Philip goes and comforts her and explains his own feelings of grief, which are very much connected to his sister who died in an air accident. A friendship grows, and he introduces her to carriage-driving, and she becomes part of that carriage-driving community, which is a group of friends that would meet up, travel the world, and have fun."

Max Mumby/Indigo/Getty Images Penny Knatchbull and Prince Philip

Pryce is happy to admit that, while helping to depict this chapter in the Prince's life, he did not actually drive any carriages himself.

"I'd like to be like Tom Cruise and say, yes, I do my own stunts," the actor says. "I spent some time learning how to do it with the carriage-driver, who worked with Philip incidentally, and he taught me the rudiments of carriage driving. But it's like everything an actor gets to do, I can look as if I can do something fantastically well."

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