Over the course of the first four seasons of Peter Morgan's sprawling royal Netflix drama The Crown, the show has welcomed audiences around the world into one of the most visible, yet mysterious families in modern history. Two years removed from the show’s decorated fourth season, some out there are probably wondering what's going on with The Crown Season 5.
With not much time before we get to see how The Crown handles some of the biggest moments of the final decade of the 20th Century, there is quite a bit of information about the 2022 Netflix show that we need to go over in a short amount of time. From the complete overhaul of the show’s principal cast (the second time this has happened thus far) to some of the material that will be covered, the penultimate season of the critically acclaimed and beloved drama appears like it will be just as great as it has been in the past. That being said, here's everything we know about The Crown Season 5.
The Crown Season 5 Is Set To Premiere November 9th
Longtime fans of The Crown weren’t all that surprised in July 2020, when news surfaced that the show would have a two-year break before new episodes premiered, especially considering there was a similar break between the show’s second and third seasons.
That wait will come to an end on November 9, 2022, when The Crown Season 5 premieres on Netflix. The streaming platform finally announced the return date for the critically acclaimed series during its September 2022 Tudum fan event where it also revealed the release dates for a number of its original shows and movies.
The Crown Season 5 Cast Is Led By Imelda Staunton And Elizabeth Debicki
As was the case with The Crown Season 3 when it first aired in November 2019, the show's return for Season 5 in November 2022 will feature an entirely new cast. This method has worked out tremendously for the show in the past with both versions of Queen Elizabeth II (Claire Foy and Olivia Colman) taking home a Golden Globe.
Leading The Crown Season 5 cast will be Imelda Staunton, who is set to become the third and final actress to play Queen Elizabeth II on the popular historical drama series. The Academy Award-nominated actress was long-rumored to be taking on the role and was confirmed as such in January 2020 along with several other members of the cast. Over the years, the celebrated actress has appeared in movies like Vera Drake, Downton Abbey, and the Harry Potter movie franchise as the despised Dolores Umbridge.
Another major player on The Crown Season 5 will be Elizabeth Debicki, who is set to portray the beloved Diana, Princess of Wales, taking over for Emma Corrin, who won a Golden Globe for her portrayal of the young princess during the show’s fourth season. The actress was brought in August 2020, just weeks before she appeared in Christopher Nolan’s mind-bending action thriller Tenet. Debicki’s other previous work includes Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, The Great Gatsby, and Widows, to name only a few.
Dominic West Will Be Playing Prince Charles
Dominic West has been rather busy since leaving his beat on the HBO crime saga The Wire in 2008, and he'll soon be even busier after being cast as Prince Charles in the final two seasons of The Crown. The actor will pick up where Josh O'Connor left off as the show enters one of the most trying and tragic times in the royal family's history.
Jonathan Price Will Be Playing Prince Philip
Jonathan Price will also be joining The Crown during its final two seasons as Queen Elizabeth II’s late husband Prince Philip, a role that was previously played by Matt Smith and then Tobias Menzies. Pryce, who has appeared on Game of Thrones and a number of movies like The Two Popes and The Man Who Killed Don Quixote in recent years, was hired to play the Duke of Edinburgh in August 2020.
Lesley Manville Will Be Playing Princess Margaret
Lesley Manville, who most recently appeared in the beloved 2022 movie Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris, has been hired to take over the role of Princess Margaret following Helena Bonham Carter's portrayal in the past two seasons. It was revealed in July 2020 that Oscar-nominated actress was cast as the Queen's younger sister.
Other major additions to the show’s cast include Jonny Lee Miller as former Prime Minister John Major, Bertie Carvel as Major’s successor Tony Blair, Timothy Dalton as Princess Margaret’s former lover Peter Townsend, and several others.
The Crown Season 5 Trailer Offers A Look At The Explosive Drama To Come
Besides a handful of still images released in the lead-up to the November 2022 premiere of The Crown Season 5, fans of the Netflix series were left in the dark about the drama that will unfold in the show's second-to-last season. That changed in October when Netflix, less than a month before the show's return, released a two-and-a-half minute trailer offering a look at the explosive drama to come:
The trailer starts off with Imelda Staunton's Queen Elizabeth II surveying the damage of the 1992 Windsor Castle fire before diving into the struggles experienced by the Royal Family during what the late monarch once called the "Annus Horribilis" in a speech looking back on the tumultuous year and those that followed.
All the main characters (now played by new actors), also get their time to shine, with several providing dramatic voice-overs while scenes of broken marriages, changing times, and uncertain futures unfold on the screen.
The Crown Season 5 Will Focus On The Royal Family In The Early To Mid 1990s
It has to be confirmed the exact years that will be covered in The Crown Season 5, but if we go off of previous seasons, we should pick back up with Queen Elizabeth II and the rest of the royal family in the show's version of the early '90s when it returns in November. Season 1 took place between 1947 and late 1955, Season 2 focused on events between 1956 and 1964, Season 3 showed the royals from 1964 to 1977, and Season 4 picked up in 1979 and left things off in 1990. And with the start of the Gulf War in 1990, which led to the Queen becoming the first British Monarch to address the United States Congress, that would be a perfect place to start.
According to the Daily Mail, The Crown Season 5 will reportedly spend a portion of its time focusing on Princess Diana’s infamous 1995 BBC interview conducted by Martin Bashir, which has since become the topic of controversy following an extensive inquiry into the journalist’s practices. Casting announcements revealed by Variety (Diana’s former lover Dr. Hasnat Khan; and Dodi Al Fayed who died with the Princess of Wales in August 1997), has the show’s fifth season running up near or to the fateful car wreck that claimed Diana’s life.
The Crown Season 5 Will Be The Penultimate Chapter Of The Royal Drama
At the start of 2020, it looked like The Crown Season 5 would be the final chapter in the royal saga, but in July, Netflix announced on its UK & Ireland Twitter account that the show would stick with its original plan of being told over the course of six seasons. This means that just like with the previous two two-season chunks of the show, we will see the recently hired cast of actors take on their royal counterparts until 2023. At the time of the announcement, Peter Morgan explained that although he thought the story could be wrapped up with Season 5, there was just too much to cover for one season.
When speaking with Deadline during a June 2022 London poetry reading, Dominic West (who portrays Prince Charles), described The Crown Season 6 as as being “as tumultuous as it gets” because it will explore the fallout from Princess Diana’s death. But the death of “The People’s Princess” won’t be the only aspect of the Royal family’s more modern history that will be explored in the show’s final season, as actors have been hired to portray Prince William and his wife Kate Middleton in their younger college years before marriage, per Deadline.
Production on The Crown Season 6 was temporarily halted in September 2022 following the death of Queen Elizabeth II, according to Variety.
There is still a lot we don’t yet know about The Crown Season 5, but expect to find out more as we get closer to the November 9th premiere of one of the most anticipated shows on the 2022 TV schedule.
