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www.postmagazine.com 12 POST JUNE 2017 DIRECTOR'S CHAIR lood. The death of a monarch. Palace intrigue and the jockey- ing for power behind the scenes. Unimaginable wealth and privilege. A cast of thousands. No, it's not Game of Thrones. It's The Crown, Netflix's acclaimed new prestige drama which chronicles the in- side story of Elizabeth II's early reign — all the real-life personal intrigues, romances and political rivalries behind the great events that shaped the second half of the 20th century. And it proves that you don't need fantasy — or nudity and dragons — to create a truly compelling drama about a royal family and its kingdom. The story begins in 1947 when Britain is still reeling from the devastation of the second World War. Streets and buildings are yet to be rebuilt following the air raid campaigns that destroyed many cities throughout the United Kingdom. Basic food supplies are still being rationed and the government's coffers are running pre- cariously low. But against this backdrop, the nation is momentarily mesmerized by the nuptials of the beautiful young princess Elizabeth (Wolf Hall's Claire Foy) to the dashing Philip Mountbatten (Doctor Who's Matt Smith). Rounding out the stellar cast is John Lithgow as Prime Minister Winston Churchill, Dame Eileen Atkins as Queen Mary, Jared Harris as King George VI, Vanessa Kirby as Princess Margaret, Victoria Hamilton as The Queen Mother and Alex Jennings as David Windsor, who abandoned his throne as Edward VIII to follow his heart and marry Wallis Simpson (Lia Williams). Reported to be Netflix's most expen- sive series to date — with a budget of over $100 million — The Crown reunites director/producer Stephen Daldry (whose films Billy Elliot, The Hours, The Reader and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close together received 19 Academy Award nominations and two wins) with series creator Peter Morgan (The Queen, Frost/Nixon) and executive producer Andy Harries (The Queen), who all worked on the Tony award-win- ning play The Audience. Daldry got his start in theater, and directed extensively in Britain's region- al theatres before moving into feature films and television. Here, in an exclu- sive interview with Post, he talks about making The Crown, his love of post and long-form drama, and the changing landscape of entertainment. What was the appeal of doing this series? "It was irresistible, because it's both this extraordinary family story, which is quite intimate in some ways, and also this his- torical story, which plays out on the world stage. It's the story of post-war Britain, and these historic events and moments in time. And there's so much drama packed into the story. Here you have a very young, very sheltered princess who gets married, never expecting that she'll sud- denly have to give up her simple life when her father, King George VI, dies unex- pectedly. So there she is, at the age of 25, the new monarch, with all the demands and responsibilities and burdens of the crown. Overnight, she goes from a wife to being the Queen, the head of the family and the head of state, and the head of the Church and the Commonwealth. And Peter Morgan knows this subject better than anyone, having done The Queen, and the script was brilliant. In a way, it plays like a very high-level soap opera, as you have all the tensions of the family, just like every family, but then you also have their responsibility to government, to Britain and to God. And we can all relate to them because they're human, but also living lives of incredible privilege, which makes it a fantastic subject to explore. It's both an epic, and an intimate drama." How tough was casting all the leads, as the royal family is probably the most photographed, filmed and documented family in history? "You're right. There's just so much stuff out there and everyone knows what they look like, but right from the start we realized that we were not going to make a look-a-like show. We had to cast the best actors for the role — even if physically the resemblance wasn't quite there, like with John Lithgow and Churchill. John's a big, tall man and Churchill was much shorter. I think there was also some feeling of, 'Why cast an American actor as the quintessen- tial English Prime Minister,' but people for- get that Churchill's mother was American, and John utterly transformed himself into Churchill, without any prosthetics and tons of make-up. So the plan was to give you the essence of these characters, and let the actors breathe new life into them, and I think it worked really well. And, of course, we got really lucky with Claire Foy as Elizabeth. She just transformed herself into this young queen who's thrust into this demanding new life." The series also stars such universally known locations as Buckingham Palace, Balmoral, 10 Downing Street and Westminster Abbey, as well as such famous events as the coronation. How did you deal with all of that when this was made without the royal family's input or co-operation? "It wasn't easy, and you can't shoot at Buckingham Palace. So, the original plan we had was to build a lot of the sets in-studio. But the fact is, it's almost impossible to replicate something like Buckingham Palace because of its huge scale, and we soon realized we were never going to be able to get the scale and height of these places on a stage. So we did a lot of scouting, and I can safely say we know every stately home in Britain by now. We shot all over, at various homes and halls and churches and schools and so on, and then we used Lancaster House in London to double for STEPHEN DALDRY: THE CROWN BY IAIN BLAIR B ON NETFLIX'S LONG-FORM DRAMA AND THE CHANGING LANDSCAPE OF ENTERTAINMENT Daldry (right) on-set