Matt Smith says Queen watched 'The Crown' on projector on Sundays, but Prince Philip wasn't a fan
LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM: The British royal family has consistently been in the spotlight, and the general public has always been drawn to seeing their exceptional lives. Several films and TV series have portrayed the majority of the royal family members; one such show, 'The Crown', managed to dramatize the life of the late Queen since her childhood.
Matt Smith, a British actor, who plays the role of Duke of Edinburgh, the late Queen's husband Prince Phillip, in the royal drama, claims that the Queen herself used to watch the series on a projector on Sunday nights. Smith, who co-starred in the show for the first two seasons with Claire Foy, spoke on the death of the longest-reigning British monarch on NBC's 'Today Show' on September 15.
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Smith discussed the passing of the British monarch and his plans to return to the UK to see the "ceremony" of the monarch's state funeral on September 19. "I heard the Queen had watched it, and she used to watch it on a projector on a Sunday night apparently. I know that Philip definitely didn't," Smith said.
Actor Matt Smith, who famously played Prince Philip in the Netflix series “The Crown,” talks about his real-life interactions with members of the royal family.
— TODAY (@TODAYshow) September 15, 2022
He also opens up about his most-recent role as Daemon Targaryen on #HouseOfTheDragon pic.twitter.com/U10MJArXL5
"A friend of mine sat next to him at a dinner once and he asked him... apparently he turned round to him and said 'don't be ridiculous,'" Smith said. Expressing his wish to attend the funeral in the UK, he said, "I think it's a piece of history. I think I just want to be in London. I want to experience it, I want to share in the ceremony of it really."
He continued by saying that although his mother wants to go to the procession, he would probably watch the service "in a local pub with a group of friends." This interview comes after Claire Foy described the privilege of portraying the late monarch as a "massive symbol of continuity, dignity, and grace".
During a brief conversation with BBC at the Toronto Film Festival, Foy stated, "I think that she was an incredible monarch. She united people and she was a massive symbol of continuity and dignity and grace. My main feeling is just thinking about her as a mother and a grandmother and a great-grandmother, really, and I'm very honored to have been a teeny tiny, small part of her story."
Following the Queen's death, Netflix recently disclosed that the first season has achieved the streamer's global top 10 for the week of September 5–11. The series came in seventh among English-language TV shows with around 17.6 million hours of global viewing.