Since the success of stage production The Audience, which saw Helen Mirren play the Queen across different decades as she interacted with various Prime Ministers, writer Peter Morgan and director Stephen Daldry have been busy adapting the show into a series for Netflix called The Crown. Now Claire Foy is close to a deal to play the younger Elizabeth.
If she makes a deal, she’ll be playing Her Maj during the early part of her reign from the 1950s onwards, handing it on to perhaps two or more other actresses as the real-life monarch ages. According to Deadline, there is no indication yet as to whether Mirren will return to the role that won her an Oscar for The Queen, but you’ve got to figure that Daldry and Morgan are trying to have her involved, if only to get the band back together.
Netflix is planning the 20-part drama as its first big foray into UK-based series, and while The Audience provides the general inspiration, the show will expand out to follow the Queen and explore the changing cultural landscape around her.
Foy, last seen in Vampire Academy (but let's draw a veil over that) but still probably best known for the Upstairs Downstairs series that ran between 2010 and 2012, is part of Jon Stewart’s directorial debut, Rosewater, which had its UK premiere at the London Film Festival but has yet to lock down a release date here.