Olivia Coleman has revealed that she was forced to make a major physical change in order to play the Queen for season three of The Crown, and admitted that she couldn't bear the pain involved in wearing fake blue contact lenses for filming. Although the Oscar-winning actress attempted to wear contacts for her transformation into the monarch, the actress' "strong eyelids" made wearing them too painful.
Olivia was unable to wear blue contact lenses
She told em>Vogue: "[Putting the contacts in] was basically like an exorcism: [I said], 'Just hold me down and thrust it in!' Ben Caron, who directed four episodes on season three, added that they also decided not to change her eye colour in post production in the end, explaining: "It didn't feel like her. CGI-ing her eyes seemed to diminish what she was doing."
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The Queen has blue eyes
According to the writer of the show, Peter Morgan, royal courtiers are aware of the topics that will be covered in the upcoming series, which will be released in November, as he regularly meets with them to discuss the series so that they can "brace themselves". Chatting to The Times, Peter revealed that he meets four times a year with "people who are very high ranking and very active within the organisation", adding: "Respectfully, I tell them what I have in mind and they brace themselves slightly."
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David Rankin-Hunt, the series protocol advisor, also previously revealed that senior members of the household have given it their seal of approval. He said: "Senior members of the royal household have said to me, 'Oh, we love The Crown.' If there were some indication from on high that it was some kind of scandalous production, that might be reflected in their view, don't you think?"