How ‘The Crown’ Shot Its Emotional Final Scenes With Imelda Staunton, Olivia Colman and Claire Foy
variety.comK.J. Yossman SPOILER ALERT: This article contains spoilers for “The Crown” Season 6, streaming on Netflix now.
The series finale of “The Crown” is set in 2005, a full 17 years before Queen Elizabeth II’s death. But as the show’s creator, Peter Morgan, told Variety earlier this year, he felt compelled to honor the Queen’s real-life passing within the show. “We’d all been through the experience of the funeral,” he said. “So because of how deeply everybody will have felt that, I had to try and find a way in which the final episode dealt with the character’s death, even though she hadn’t died yet.” The result is an emotional final five minutes, which sees an 80-year-old Elizabeth, played by Imelda Staunton, contemplating her life in St George’s Chapel, where she will eventually be laid to rest.
She imagines younger versions of herself — resulting in cameos from the role’s previous incumbents, Olivia Colman and Claire Foy — as well as picturing her coffin.
Finally, she makes the lengthy walk across the floor of the chapel, toward the door and into the light. The scenes, which were filmed at York Minster Cathedral in April, were directed by Stephen Daldry (who also directed the first two episodes of the series) with Adriano Goldman as director of photography.
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