The Crown Season 3 Will Give Queen Elizabeth II Brown Eyes, Straying From Reality

The Crown is breaking continuity and giving Queen Elizabeth II brown eyes in the third season of The Crown.

'The Crown' is not exactly a historically accurate series, they do show real-life events faced by the Royals, but the series is known for taking some leaps for dramatic purposes. For example, last season when the American President JFK and his wife were shown on a couple of episode of the series, they did bend some facts to fit their narrative and caught a lot of flak for it.

It is understandable to a degree, the show is a dramatic representation of the Royals, it is not a documentary, and we are on the outside looking in when it comes to telling the story about the British Monarchy. But whatever the case, the show never strayed away from the real appearance of the characters on the show to make it all seem as historically accurate portrayal as they can.

Source: Digital Spy

Well, it is going to change when season three of the beloved series makes its debut on Netflix. The biggest character of the show and the person on which the whole thing is based on is going to be portrayed inaccurately in the third season. By inadequate, we mean, the Queen’s eye color will be changed for the series.

Olivia Coleman is playing the role of Queen Elizabeth II in the third season, taking over from Claire Foy, who played the Monarch for two seasons. Olivia Coleman, as you probably noticed, is brown-eyed and the creators along with directors of the series tried to film Olivia while wearing a blue lens but it didn’t feel right.

Watch: The date announcement of the third season of The Crown coming to Netflix

Claire was born with natural blue eyes but Olivia when it came to Olivia, the lens didn’t take and the director of season three said it felt like she was acting while hiding her face behind a mask. The Oscar-winner was willing to go forward with the lens, but it just didn’t feel right for the creative team behind the series.

Ben Caron is a director in the third season, and he said, “It was as if we had taken all of her acting ability and put it in a safe and locked it away.” Like we said before, the Queen is blue-eyed, and Claire is also the same, so now the series is going to break continuity in both season three and four.

Source: David Reviews

The problem was filming, the people behind the camera just couldn’t get the right amount of feel from the lensed Olivia, but in this modern age, there are other tools to help out the creative team in post-production. But Caron ruled out there being any tweaks made in the post to make the Queen’s eyes blue in the third and fourth season of the series.

“It didn’t feel like her,” Caron said. “CGI-ing, her eyes seemed to diminish what she was doing.” It is understandable; the actors cannot change the color of their eyes and sometimes using a lens to portray character only serves to make both the actor and real-life character seem ridiculous.

Source: Radio Times

The third season of the hit series will focus more on the relationship forged between Prime Minister Harold Wilson and the Queen, or it is what show’s creator Peter Morgan thought. But according to executive producer Suzanne Mackie, another character is also taking center stage in the series. Josh O’Connor, the actor playing the role of adult Prince Charles, is said to be the breakout performer from season three.

“What [Chris Moran] has discovered is that it’s actually about [Prince] Charles,” Mackie said about the focus of the third season. “Partly because Josh O’Connor, the actor who plays him is so astonishingly good.”

Source: The Times

Back talking about the third season was Caron with Guardian who said, “I don’t think the mafia is a great thing. Nor do lots of people. But lots of people watch ‘The Sopranos’ because they are fascinated by Tony Soprano and his family relationships and because the stakes in the story are massive.”

By all of it, he probably means, the eye color is secondary to the bigger storytelling on hand. Would they like to make the eye color of Olivia’s blue? Yes! But it won’t be done at the cost of the story. Content is always the king, and if Olivia Coleman kills it as the Queen, which we think she will, then people will forget about the fact the Queen is supposed to be blue-eyed. So, at the end of the day, a good story and acting will always trump the aesthetic value of production.

The Crown is coming to Netflix on 17 November 2019 with a new cast for the much awaited season three.