Every Actress Who Has Played Queen Elizabeth on “The Crown” (and What She's Said About It)

Here are the lessons Claire Foy, Olivia Colman and Imelda Staunton have learned from stepping into Queen Elizabeth's historic heels

Heavy is the head that wears The Crown.

Claire Foy, Olivia Colman and Imelda Staunton have all risen to the challenge of playing Queen Elizabeth on the Netflix hit, bringing grace and gumption to each season of her life.

With The Crown having bid fans a final farewell in December 2023 with an indelible season 6 finale, let’s look back on what the three stars have said about portraying the Queen on the small screen during the show’s seven-year run.

Claire Foy, Season 1

Ahead of its November 2016 series premiere, Foy told Variety she was "very proud" to originate the role of the Queen in season 1 of The Crown.

"I found she's very challenging as a person for me to play because we're not massively similar — vocally, physically, and she's [a] very [in control], stoic person," she told the outlet. "That's what I thought would be brilliant about it. I would have to get involved and go the whole way."

Foy added that she did "loads of research" to prepare for the part, starting with the Queen's style of speaking.

"The voice was a good way into it. It wasn't so much her voice but the voice of the time. It was so different from how we speak now," she said. "That was key to get my head around. I love watching the old family videos of them in private life."

Claire Foy, Season 2

After receiving a nomination in the same category the year prior, Foy went on to win the Emmy for outstanding lead actress in a drama series. (Her reprisal as Queen Elizabeth in season 4 of The Crown won her the Emmy for outstanding guest actress in a drama series in 2021.)

Before the second season premiered, the actress spoke to The Wrap in August 2017 about how her approach to the part had changed.

"The first season was highly emotional, and this time around I've been able to enjoy the differences between me and her a bit more," she told the site. "It's very difficult to play someone who everyone has a preconception about and not sort of let that in — it's hard enough alone to imagine yourself as the Queen."

Foy added that she found confidence in "anchoring" her portrayal of the Queen to the shock following the death of her father, King George VI.

"It was there in Peter's writing, and I knew early on that the crux of the whole story was the fact that her father died," she said of creator Peter Morgan's storyline. "It was an earthquake."

Olivia Colman, Season 3

With a change of cast to reflect the passage of time, Queen Elizabeth's tiara passed to Colman for seasons 3 and 4 of The Crown.

Before the third season hit the streamer in November 2019, the actress said she was inspired by Foy's portrayal as she took over the character.

"I think I was doing an impression of Claire for the first couple of weeks' filming, definitely channeling her, but then I just started to do what the script says and I've fallen in love with the Queen," Colman told Radio Times magazine, per The Guardian. "She's changed my views on everything."

Sparkling in the part, Colman was nominated for an Emmy for outstanding lead actress in a drama series for season 3 of The Crown and would win the statuette for depicting the monarch in season 4.

Olivia Colman, Season 4

Colman opened up about feeling a hotter spotlight as she returned to the role of Queen Elizabeth before season 4 premiered in November 2020. Though she’d won the Academy Award for Best Actress for playing Queen Anne in The Favourite in 2019, the star said it didn't deter her nerves about portraying Queen Elizabeth.

"It's definitely more daunting to play someone that everyone knows," she told Deadline. "The beauty of Queen Anne is that no one can tell me she didn't sound like that, but everyone can tell me what the Queen sounds like, and that's slightly annoying… It's much harder to play people that everyone has a vision of, a picture of, and has ideas about."

On her own background before The Crown, she added: "I've never joined a show that's already been up and running and successful. But I was such an enormous fan of the show that I didn't really think about it."

Imelda Staunton, Season 5

When The Crown season 5 hit Netflix in late 2022, all eyes were on Staunton, the last actress to reign as the Queen on the series.

"I'm delighted to be here, inheriting the role of Queen Elizabeth from two outstanding actresses. … I will do my utmost to maintain the very high standard that they set," Staunton said in a video on X (formerly Twitter) released in September 2021.

"Hopefully I look calm, collected and capable. My stomach, meanwhile, is doing somersaults," she continued, seated at a desk much like the one the Queen used in real life. "On behalf of the cast and crew, we look forward to bringing you the next season of The Crown in November 2022."

Imelda Staunton, Season 6

Staunton continued her royal role for the sixth and final season of The Crown. However, as the actress recalled, filming for season 6 came at a remarkably sorrowful time: Production was paused after Queen Elizabeth died on Sept. 8, 2022.

"We filmed the day after the funeral, and I felt it was difficult for the other people looking at me 'cause we have a lot of supporting artists and they were all looking at this act of playing the person who had been buried yesterday," Staunton told Entertainment Tonight in November 2022. "So, it was odd."

"Everyone was extremely sad, and I know I was very inconsolable that evening," Staunton added. "My reaction surprised me. Of course, I would feel something. But having lived with her very closely for two years, it felt strange."

Following the December 2023 series finale, Staunton told NPR what she felt The Crown’s long-term legacy would be: “Well, I think that we were in a piece of television that was a huge experiment. I think the experiment paid off. And to be part of something that has used so many actors, so many crew members, that we all wanted the standard to be as high as it possibly could at every minute of every single day was a great thing to be part of. And I feel so proud and grateful to have been there.”

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