Most fans of the royal Netflix drama The Crown know that Season 3 and 4 will feature new main players since the show will jump ahead from the early 1960s to sometime in the 1970s. Well, we've finally found out who will take over from Matt Smith as Prince Phillip on the series, and it's an amazing choice. Tobias Menzies, of Outlander, has signed on to step into the prince's royal shoes for the upcoming seasons.
While it's true that Matt Smith did a fantastic job of bringing the history of England's current royal family to life and it will be sad to see him go, it's hard to argue with the choice of Tobias Menzies as the new Prince Phillip. Menzies is, perhaps, best known to audiences for his recent dual roles on the Starz historical drama Outlander, where he portrayed the warm and gentle Frank Randall and his sadistic ancestor Black Jack Randall. There's no doubt that someone who can play such radically different roles is capable of bringing the right tone to Prince Phillip, a character who've we've seen be loving, humorously inappropriate in social situations and somewhat awkward in his role as the second most important person in his family.
Tobias Menzies has racked up almost 60 film and TV credits since his start in 2000. In addition to Outlander, his work includes roles on Casualty, Foyle's War, Finding Neverland, Casino Royale, Rome, Atonement, MI-5, The Deep, Getting On, Game of Thrones, Black Mirror, Doctor Who, The Night Manager and Catastrophe. He can currently be seen on the new AMC thriller The Terror.
We don't know right now what Season 3 will bring for Phillip, but, hopefully, we'll get a chance to see the character as a man more used to the role he was thrust into when his wife suddenly became queen. It would be nice to finally see Phillip, after over a decade of having to bow to royal conventions and not always being able to do what he wants (especially where his family is concerned), deal with royal pressure in a more healthy way than he did as a young royal.
Of course, it's unusual for a show to recast major roles as The Crown has, but it was devised by show creator Peter Morgan as an intriguing way to show the characters aging. It will present a unique opportunity for Tobias Menzies, and Olivia Colman, who will take over from Claire Foy as Queen Elizabeth II, to truly make these iconic roles their own across the two seasons they signed on to.
According to Deadline, The Crown will start shooting Season 3 this summer, and the show will be back on Netflix sometime later this year. In the meantime, to see what else you can catch on the small screen, be sure to check out our midseason premiere guide, Netflix premiere guide, summer premiere guide and Amazon premiere guide.
