"The Crown" S3: An Acting Showcase
Monday, November 18, 2019 at 9:00PM by Cláudio Alves
Why do we, as an audience, love to see celebrities playing other celebrities? Just look at the history of the acting categories of the Oscars to see this love in full bloom. Every year, they are invaded by biopics with famous actors imitating the look, feel, ticks, sound, and accents of other figures in the public consciousness. Perhaps it's got something to do with the juxtaposition of two famous personas, neither fully erasing the other. It’s a palimpsest of acting.
We know the Queen of England, how she sounds and how she looks. When an actress plays her, their transformation becomes obvious because it calls attention to the art of pretending, but also to what is specific about the pretender in the first place. By watching Olivia Colman play the Queen in The Crown, it becomes obvious what makes Olivia Colman so special...
Of course, in this instance, the comparison isn't just to the Queen herself, but also Claire Foy's version of the role.
To put it bluntly, Colman never disappears in the role and she doesn't fully convince as an older version of Foy either. However, she gives us her interpretation, delineating new facets that the first seasons didn't dare show. For one, this monarch is often ridiculous, her po-faced solemnity easily read as absurd majesty. Foy rarely allowed us to find humor in her Elizabeth, but Colman, a natural comedian, can't help herself.
That's not to say she's simply recycling old performances from her repertoire. Her coldness and vacant inexpression are something quite new for Colman. Honestly, one only realizes how elastic the actress' face usually is, after watching ten hours of her actively repressing such emotional transparency. If Foy played a Queen learning to be an icon rather than a woman, Colman plays a monarch that's learned and internalized that lesson. Before, we saw the character as a student, but now she's a master and a merciless teacher, too.
Josh O'Connor's Charles is the main victim of such mercilessness and the actor is brilliant at creating a vision of entitled vulnerability. Having fallen in love with him in God's Own Country, it's startling to confront the difference here. The ability to emote with micro-expressions is still there, but now it's mixed with a sense of rarefied privilege and an astounding imitation of Charles's voice. Erin Doherty is also shockingly similar to Princess Anne, though my unfamiliarity with her other work might be responsible for that surprise.
Helena Bonham Carter, on the other hand, is deeply unconvincing as Princess Margaret, visually. It's still a great performance that earns its greatness from the way the actress subsumes her usual ticks and mannerisms. She sacrifices her free-spirited screen persona to create a crass brat, the frustrated victim of her family's heartlessness and her husband's hatred. She's playing someone perpetually narcotized by alcohol and resentment, someone that irradiates pain and the need to be the center of attention at all times.
Yes, the third season of The Crown is an acting showcase for all. Tobias Menzies, trapped in the series' most insufferable role, manages to find interesting ways to play Prince Phillip's midlife crisis. What somewhat surprises is the excellence of the recurring and guest players. Jason Watkins is one Josh O'Connor away from being the season's MVP, for instance. Even Geraldine Chaplin as Wallis Simpson, a character with little to do, makes the most of it, delivering some of that episode's best lines with withering sharpness.
The Crown's new season is available on Netflix.
Reader Comments (30)
Just finished Episode 6 of the third season, and I'm surprised at how unflattering and unflinching a portrait is being painted of the Queen (I felt the previous seasons were much more positive representations of her). Her response to Diana's death seems all the more baffling now knowing of the heat she took for her response to the Aberfan disaster.
I'm only 3 episodes in and I agree strongly with your observations. I don't pay a lot of attention to the royal family, but I find The Crown irresistible
It's not just the cast, it's the sets and costuming. Just a visual delight.
I was very impressed by Claire Foy's take on the young Queen Elizabeth, but Olivia Colman's version is more like the Queen I grew up knowing. (middle-aged).
Helena Bonham Carter plays a magnificent wreck of a person to perfection. Hope she wins lots of awards.
Your comment on Colman not disappearing but interpreting reminded me of Renee in Judy.
I for one would rather an artists creation than mimicry.
K, but on the comments it seems folks here wanted more mimicry from Renee. Usually the opposite opinion, so maybe it's just a Renee thing or bias.
I never thought I would lose to a lovely British TV-Actress.
A travesty.
Fucked up to the power of three. No non overdue Oscars EVAH!
I'm 5 episodes in, and i had a terrible time accepting Colman as ERII. Her interpretation of the role, and the different tenor to the plot, left me always looking at her, wondering if she was going to become Elizabeth. Happy to say that has finally happened. The rest of the cast is fine.
Helena Bonham Carter is having a ball with Margaret, and the storyline allows her to be wild in a way that Vanessa Kirby wasn't. She's less petulant.
The one thing that hasn't changed is the way the series gives so much detail. I LOVE the costuming and the production design.
I'm about halfway through and Colman's performance is rather drab, but serviceable. I know Foy's take was a generous, mostly flattering version of the monarch but I loved the surprises, the pockets of warmth and feeling in private moments. Colman doesn't seem interested in any of that.
It doesn't help that Colman (almost 46, looking 56) is playing a 40-year-old queen. And as you note, you never forget you're watching Olivia Colman, voice and all. They should've used the original cast for one more season, in my opinion.
I won't be watching.
Unfunny gimmick accounts are my thing, brush off Claire Foy! It's 3 artful not 4 artful. There are not four faces of Eve
Again /3rtful, you're not funny, you're a pain in the ass. I wish Nathaniel would something about it.
You won't bully me. Stop using my nick.
what has happened to this comments section? I'm so tired of all the fake accounts and all the people trying to be multiple people. Just talk amongst the other film and tv lovers that come to the site as yourself!
I have the same issue with Colman. I'm watching Colman doing her usually Britishness and as much as I love her, her performance does not feel like a continuation of Foy's beautifully nuanced work.
As a whole, I've been rather disappointed by this show in terms of acting. It's too actor-y but without character being front stage.
I'm sorry but the Claire Foy comment was funny
And your Oscar win is bland in retrospect. That's all.
I'm 3 episodes in, and this season just feels less dynamic than the first two. The first season kicked off with her father's death and ascension to the throne, and season 2 kicked off with all of the marriage woes. I think it was the wrong decision to so quickly shift to a Margaret episode, before we got a chance to know Colman as the queen. And the first episode had some solid scenes, but the soviet spy plot felt oddly paced. However, Colman is truly great in the Aberfan episode. It just feels like the show continued on, without fully recognizing that we need time to get used to this Elizabeth and to care for her.
However, I can't wait to watch more!
Thanks, Nathaniel!
I've only seen the first three episodes, but I had to hold off from watching more because I enjoyed them so much (although Episode 3 is a downer). Yes, Colman is an old-looking 40-year-old, but so was the Queen! And I think she's quite spectacular in the role so far.
Count me in as another viewer who never cared anything about the Royals until she started watching the Crown (in fact, I scoffed at the idea of this very show). Now I'm on pins and needles to learn more about Charles's education...
@Suzanne—
The Queen was very plain at 40 but if you look at photos from Aberfan, 1966 and the general era she didn't look as aged as Colman looks in the role, or in real life. Closer to Foy (currently 35) on the visible youth spectrum than to Colman.
They did a good enough job gesturing in that direction with season 2 of The Crown. I don't see why they couldn't have gotten another 10 years out of Claire Foy.
Apart from the last heartbreaking scene, I thought they would establish better how Harold Wilson became the Queen's favourite Prime Minister (other than Churchill, of course). Thatcher and the Queen didn't like each other at all, so we'll have fun in season 4.
I will never get over it, Joan!
It was full of Oliviaisms,I hope her acting style is not solidifying already,HBC is wrong for Princess Margaret,she's aloof and often funny but not remotely alluring,a key ingredient for Princess Margaret.
I think Cláudio makes an excellent point in that one of the themes of the third season is that the Queen has now settled into the role, so it makes perfect sense that Colman’s performance would reflect some of the banality of her existence. The steep learning curve of “becoming” the Queen was brilliantly handled by Foy but Colman has, arguably, a more difficult task in maintaining our interest as a woman who’s to some extent going through the motions of royal duty. I think Colman has done a stunning job teasing out the humour and emotion whilst giving genuine insight into what the dreariness of a life in service must feel like once you’ve been doing it for 20-odd years - this doesn’t make the performance itself dull to me, as Colman has astounded me with how much she’s able to express within much less dynamic material than Foy had to work with. In the second episode, the Duke of Edinburgh nails it with his observations that Elizabeth is one of the “dull” Windsors. If you’re making a show ostensibly about the Queen then exploring the extraordinary conundrum of being dull and yet the most famous woman in the world is unique and fertile territory - I think Colman nails it.
So does this mean that everyone's crush on Olivia Colman is over? So quickly?
Hooray for us!
Was only a matter of time.
That Hooray isn't mine. /3rtful you're relentless and an idiot.
I'm more hurrah. Much more literary.
I find Colman as terribly boring in the role. Foy was much more exciting in her interpretation.
Helena is naturally the MVP, much thanks to two episodes being dedicated to her.
It’s just so weird to keep finding myself looking for the other characters rather than the Queen.
Jane Lapotaire STOLE that episode with the documentary though.
I miss Matthew Goode is all.