After two seasons, Claire Foy’s reign on The Crown has come to an end. Following a time jump, Olivia Colman will take over the leading role of Queen Elizabeth II. Though many fans were overjoyed by this news, one British writer was not a fan of the casting decision — because of Colman’s “left-wing” face. Now, Colman is responding to the feedback, calling the writer’s criticism “absurd.”
In an August op-ed for The Daily Telegraph, columnist Charles Moore wrote that Colman has “a distinctly left-wing face...hard to describe but easy to recognize.” He went on to write that the real Queen Elizabeth “has no such face,” and thus, the role was miscast.
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Colman told The Sunday Times that she first heard of Moore’s comment when friends started texting her jokes about her “left-wing face,” and she found the criticism as ridiculous as the rest of us did. “What’s the point of putting on an accent or dyeing your hair or playing anybody if you have to be identical in the first place and have the same feelings?” she said.
Furthermore, Colman disagreed with Moore’s thoughts on the Queen’s political leanings. “I think she’s a leftie, but I think what’s extraordinary and wonderful about her, she can be everything to anybody,” she said. She cited Elizabeth’s positive relationship with Prime Minister Harold Wilson, a member of the Labour party. However, no one really knows where Elizabeth’s politics lie — the royal family has famously kept that under wraps.
The third season of The Crown will pick up in 1964 and cover Elizabeth’s partnership with Wilson (Jason Watkins). Other topics we might see onscreen could be the decolonization of Africa and the Apollo 11 moon landing.
The series will return to Netflix on November 17.