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Helena Bonham Carter is Joining ‘The Crown’

Another exceptional casting replacement for the next season of Netflix’s royal drama.
Helena Bonham Carter The Kings Speech
By  · Published on January 8th, 2018

Another exceptional casting replacement for the next season of Netflix’s royal drama.

As announced last year, Claire Foy is officially vacating the role of Queen Elizabeth II in The Crown. Foy will be replaced by Olivia Colman in seasons to come, and we’ve expected more casting announcements to follow. The Hollywood Reporter has since revealed that Helena Bonham Carter could be gearing up to take over the role of Princess Margaret, Elizabeth’s sister.

Margaret was originally played by Vanessa Kirby, and Bonham Carter will be stepping into one of the more controversial roles in the series involving relationship drama that resulted in a scandalous marriage between Margaret and Antony Armstrong-Jones (played by Matthew Goode in the series). Kirby herself revealed in an interview with THR that the transition into Margaret’s later years would’ve been a lot of fun to play if she could have continued on the show.

“I’m just so excited about whoever gets to do it because they’ve definitely got the coolest stuff coming up. Bring on the drama! I would have loved to have done it. I absolutely love to do all the blazing rows and getting drunk and just all of it.”

The actors’ replacements on The Crown come in an effort to more authentically portray the characters as they age in order to believably cover decades of story. Bonham Carter’s typical resume of off-center, slightly strange characters (thanks, I guess, Tim Burton) puts her in an interesting position to play the more impulsive royal sister. But Bonham Carter has, in fact, played royalty before — think her Oscar-nominated turn as the actual Queen Mother (Elizabeth and Margaret’s mum) in The King’s Speech as opposed to the Queen of Hearts in Burton’s ill-conceived version of Alice in Wonderland. Bonham Carter is definitely no stranger to depictions of the royal family.

Foy, Kirby, and the rest of the current cast of The Crown (including Matt Smith as Prince Philip) took a final bow in the show’s second season, which premiered on Netflix December 8th. Interestingly enough, The Crown hasn’t actually been officially renewed for a third season. But with the actor turnover expected to happen once every two seasons, Colman and Bonham Carter would ideally commit to the roles for the next couple of years right out of the gate. Early production is said to be underway.

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Sheryl Oh often finds herself fascinated (and let's be real, a little obsessed) with actors and their onscreen accomplishments, developing Film School Rejects' Filmographies column as a passion project. She's not very good at Twitter but find her at @sherhorowitz anyway. (She/Her)