Who Plays The Queen In The Crown?

In the series finale of Netflix's original series "The Crown" — "Sleep, Dearie Sleep," which closes out the show's sixth and final outing — three queens grace our screen as the show says farewell. Peter Morgan's decades-spanning show, which covers multiple generations of the real-life British family, makes the understandable choice to cast multiple people in the same roles as the series continues rather than slapping old-age makeup onto younger performers or digitally de-aging older ones. Aside from Queen Elizabeth II, who is ostensibly the focus of the series, other real-life figures are played by handfuls of people. Elizabeth's younger sister Margaret, for example, gets three powerhouse performers — Vanessa Kirby as a younger woman, Helena Bonham Carter in her middle age, and Lesley Manville as the oldest version we see. Similarly, the queen's husband Philip is played by "Doctor Who" and "Morbius" veteran Matt Smith for the first two seasons, "Outlander" and "Game of Thrones" player Tobias Menzies for the following two, and "The Two Popes" star Jonathan Pryce for the final two (Pryce, like Menzies, also appeared in "Game of Thrones").

Okay, so what about the queen herself? Throughout her life, Morgan cast three incredible, acclaimed actresses to play the longest-reigning monarch in British history. As she prepares to ascend the throne, Claire Foy plays a young Elizabeth. During the middle years of her life and at the height of her reign, Olivia Colman takes over the role. Finally, in the last two seasons of "The Crown," Queen Elizabeth II is played by Imelda Staunton. So what happens in each of these actors' respective seasons, and where have you seen them elsewhere?

In the very first season of "The Crown," Claire Foy's Elizabeth isn't a queen when we first meet her — she's still the eldest daughter of King George VI (Jared Harris), and as princess, she enters into an arranged marriage with Prince Philip of Denmark and Greece (Matt Smith), who officially renounces his title to become Philip Mountbatten and Elizabeth's future consort. When the king dies due to lung disease, Elizabeth is crowned, and she must suddenly navigate her new role as sovereign of the British empire (which was still very much a worldwide thing at that point). Season 1 also sees Winston Churchill (John Lithgow) resign and Elizabeth battle with her sister Margaret over Margaret's insatiable desire to marry an "unsuitable" man named Peter Townsend (Ben Miles), and in Season 2, Elizabeth is also faced with 1956's Suez Crisis and the Profumo affair (as well as the scandal that followed). Foy also plays the queen as she gives birth to her two younger sons, Andrew and Edward (her two eldest, Charles and Anne, were born in the first season).

After "The Crown," Foy — who won two Emmys for her role — worked on projects like "First Man" alongside Ryan Gosling and the miniseries "A Very British Scandal." In 2022, Foy led the ensemble cast of Sarah Polley's Oscar-winning drama "Women Talking," and in 2023, she appeared in a supporting role in Andrew Haigh's stunning romantic drama "All of Us Strangers," which earned the actress a BAFTA nomination.

After Claire Foy left "The Crown" behind, the role fell to Olivia Colman, who plays the monarch throughout the show's third and fourth seasons. In Season 3, which spans from the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s, Colman's Queen Elizabeth II deals with quite a lot, including a few prime ministers, the Aberfan disaster (a serious mountain collapse in Wales), the deaths of Winston Churchill and Elizabeth's uncle the Duke of Windsor, more personal troubles with Princess Margaret (now played by Helena Bonham-Carter), and even the Apollo 11 moon landing. The season ends with Elizabeth's Silver Jubilee — a celebration of 25 years as queen — and goes right into Season 4, which picks up serious steam thanks to one huge factor: the presence of a young Diana Spencer. Played perfectly by Emma Corrin, audiences meet the young noblewoman as she's romanced by Prince Charles (Josh O'Connor), only to discover that he's really in love with Camilla Parker Bowles (director and writer Emerald Fennell). Besides the Diana and Charles drama, Elizabeth must also face off against a new, formidable opponent of sorts in Margaret Thatcher, played by Gillian Anderson.

Colman, who won an Academy Award for playing a different queen in Yorgos Lanthimos' 2018 dark comedy "The Favourite" — specifically, the downtrodden Queen Anne — followed "The Crown" with TV shows like "Heartstopper" and Marvel's "Secret Invasion" as well as films like "The Father," "The Lost Daughter," "Empire of Light," and "Wonka." She also appeared in multiple seasons of Hulu's hit series "The Bear" as a special guest star, and not for nothing, she gave one of the most charming Oscar acceptance speeches in recent memory.

The final actress to play Queen Elizabeth II on "The Crown" is Imelda Staunton, a British screen legend who brings serious gravity to the show's last two seasons. Staunton — who's probably most widely known for playing Dolores Umbridge in the "Harry Potter" films — takes up the mantle in Season 5, in which Elizabeth deals with her "annus horribilis" (meaning a "terrible year") in 1992, a seriously revealing interview from a wronged Diana (now played by Elizabeth Debicki) that reveals Charles' (Dominic West) infidelity, and an important state visit to Russia. Tony Blair (Bertie Carvel) takes over as prime minister at the end of the season, bringing the show into its final outing — which, of course, puts a major focus on the death of Diana, Princess of Wales in Paris. (In real life and on the show, the princess died in a car accident in a Parisian tunnel while trying to avoid paparazzi in another car.) Elizabeth deals with a lot of grief in Season 6 of "The Crown," to be frank; she also watches as her sister Margaret (now Lesley Manville) and her mother, Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother (Marcia Warren), both die. Eventually, the entire series concludes around Elizabeth's 80th birthday, which means the audience also meets key figures from her history like her grandsons Prince William and Prince Harry (Ed McVey and Luther Ford) as well as William's future wife Kate Middleton (Meg Bellamy), and Charles and Camilla (Olivia Williams) marry after years of courtship.

Staunton only recently concluded her run as Queen Elizabeth II in 2023, but she's stayed busy; In 2022, she played Lady Maud Bagshaw in "Downton Abbey: A New Era" (reprising her role from the first film), and since 2014, she's continued to voice Aunt Lucy in the "Paddington" movies.

"The Crown" is available to stream on Netflix.