Summary

• The Crown features different actresses portraying Queen Elizabeth II in each season, capturing her unique characteristics based on the time period.
• Claire Foy, Olivia Colman, and Imelda Staunton all bring something special to their portrayals of Queen Elizabeth II in The Crown.
• Imelda Staunton's performance in the most recent seasons of The Crown is considered the definitive version of Queen Elizabeth II.

Netflix TV series The Crown has featured the performances of three different actresses as Queen Elizabeth II over its six seasons, and each brings her own unique angle to the UK monarch. Every two seasons, each of which generally spans approximately a decade, the characters of The Crown are all recast with actors of the appropriate ages. Elizabeth’s portrayals are all so different and dependent on the decade of the season, it becomes almost impossible to compare them.

Though The Crown included a disclaimer in later seasons acknowledging its use of creative license in its retelling of events, the show has been wildly successful. This has been due in large part to the craftwork behind the portrayals of the characters, and Elizabeth especially. No matter who plays Queen Elizabeth II, all of The Crown’s leading actresses bring something special to their seasons. Each version of The Queen is meant to capture an aspect of Elizabeth unique to the decade and age of that particular season, and Claire Foy, Olivia Colman, and Imelda Staunton all do that beautifully.

The Crown is available to stream on Netflix.

3 Claire Foy

Seasons 1 & 2

The first version of Queen Elizabeth II introduced in The Crown is played by Claire Foy. Foy’s performance covers Elizabeth’s earliest years as queen and highlights a side of her that is generally much less accessible in popular culture due to a lack of first-hand records such as television interviews and news footage. The years covered in these earlier seasons feature Elizabeth learning how to navigate her role as queen, even though she is only a young woman when she suddenly inherits the throne from her father, King George VI.

These early seasons, since their events took place so long ago, require a lot of emotional work from Foy and the rest of the cast of The Crown to accurately depict historical figures and events that might not have a lot of concrete source material. Foy’s ability to play a dutiful queen, love-struck bride, and caring mother from one scene to another make Elizabeth seem relatable, even as she shoulders an empire. Throughout The Crown seasons 1 and 2, Foy played on Elizabeth’s strength as she emphasized how difficult it was for her to adapt to her new leadership role as such a young woman.

Claire Foy is remarkable as this rarely-seen, youthful version of Elizabeth. Foy captures small elements of the real-life future monarch as the world knows her, while embellishing this real The Crown character with original touches that are both complementary and surprising. While Foy does embody The Crown's young Elizabeth well, this largely unfamiliar portrayal means the more recognizable performances inevitably come during later seasons.

2 Olivia Colman

Seasons 3 & 4

Olivia Colman’s portrayal of Queen Elizabeth II requires her to be a serious and powerful queen, but also maintain a bright and easygoing demeanor at times. This version of Elizabeth is middle-aged, has already sacrificed her girlish dreams and plans for her future, and now she easily commands her country with confidence. At the same time, she still mourns the carefree life she cannot have. Several times throughout the timeline of The Crown seasons 3 and 4, Colman expertly walks the line between queen and mother, conveying an almost harsh insistence that her children handle their royal responsibilities with the grace that she did all those years previously.

Particularly in The Crown season 3, episode 5, "The Coup," Colman emphasizes Elizabeth's sadness that activities such as horseback riding and simply being with loved ones could have been more than just hobbies of hers had the throne not fallen to her. The Oscar-winning Colman perfectly depicts Elizabeth’s uncle’s abdication and the effect his decision had on her life and her father’s. Though she is not bitter, she seeks out an apology and acknowledgment that this twist of fate was unfair to her family. In this way, Colman as Queen Elizabeth is fierce in a way the other performances do not show.

1 Imelda Staunton

Seasons 5 & 6

Imelda Staunton’s Elizabeth in The Crown is the most familiar. The actress portrays Queen Elizabeth II in her most recent decades, starting in the early 1990s. Though later seasons focus on Princess Diana and the fallout from her death, Staunton keeps the audience’s attention throughout all of Elizabeth’s The Crown season 5 and 6 storylines, capturing the queen’s softness and fear of becoming obsolete in a changing society, but also portraying her as strong and courageous.

This performance is unique because Queen Elizabeth II's challenges primarily revolve around her children’s personal lives in season 5, including the introduction of many real events The Crown season 6 continued to cover. Staunton's Queen Elizabeth II performance is special, as she combines the stoic beacon of leadership the modern world re with flecks of the more youthful versions from previous The Crown seasons.

The Crown season 6, the final season, featured Imelda Staunton once again as Queen Elizabeth II. The ending of The Crown season 6 was an emotional farewell to the character, flashing forward to capture the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II in 2022. While The Crown season 7 may happen it's currently been put forward as a prequel series, meaning there's unlikely to be anyone cast as the Queen. While each of the names who brought the monarch to life in The Crown gave a phenomenal performance, Imelda Staunton's Elizabeth remains the definitive version of her in the show.