Because Season 3 of The Crown will be delayed and not start streaming until 2019, Netflix has been sharing more stills than usual, including some familiar faces from other current costume dramas. Fans of Outlander will be thrilled to see Tobias Menzies, aka Jonathan Randall (and Frank Randall), again as Prince Philip in Seasons 3 and 4 of The Crown .
Menzies is taking over for Matt Smith who played the younger, boyish Prince Philip with a cool detachment and occasional temper tantrum. But Deadline says that with the Outlander actor taking over the role of the Duke of Edinburgh (opposite Broadchurch star Olivia Colman), the prince will be entering a more mature stage of his life.
Fans of Outlander know very well that Menzies is well prepared to play a character who can go from mild-mannered to sharp-tongued very quickly from his dual role as Frank Randall through the 1960s and Jonathan “Blackjack” Randall back in the 1600s. Menzies also stretched his acting muscles in Game of Thrones as Edmure Tully, and as the Duke of Cornwall in a modern telling of King Lear.
In the stills from Netflix, Menzies has had his hair dyed a shade of sandy blonde and he looks slimmer than when he played the Randalls, but anyone familiar with his time playing the two character through the ages knows that Menzies is more than up to the task.
The best images from the filming of Netflix’s #TheCrown https://t.co/yJXBR82NOr
— T (@TobiasPhallus) November 20, 2018
If you watch The Durrells in Corfu on PBS, the new Prince Charles in Season 3 of The Crown will look very familiar as the eldest son Lawrence Durrell in the series in its third season. Town & Country says that Season 3 of The Crown will feature Prince Charles’ investiture in Wales as the Prince of Wales.
Prince Charles was given the title “Prince of Wales” in 1958, but his formal ceremony of investiture didn’t take place until 1969 where he was formally invested as the prince by his mother Queen Elizabeth.
Matt Smith, the former Prince Philip says he is excited to see the new actors and their take on the royal family, and he feels good about the choice of Menzies as the Duke of Edinburgh and Colman as Queen Elizabeth.
“[Menzies] is a good bit of casting. I pass it on with a smile and a good luck. I’d rather be doing two years on something than seven…It’s all about Olivia Colman and Tobias Menzies now.”
There is no official premiere date yet for The Crown Season 3, but the good news is that Seasons 3 and 4 are being filmed back to back.