Suzanne Mackie, executive producer of all six seasons of “The Crown,” has pretty much seen it all, working closely with Peter Morgan, the creator and head writer of the highly praised Netflix drama, which aired its 60th anniversary. and final episode in December.
The series, winner of 10 Emmy Awards from 28 nominations so far, ran primarily from 1947 to 2005 and followed the trials and tribulations of the British royal family, led by Queen Elizabeth II. Its jam-packed final season included the death of Princess Diana, the passing of Princess Margaret, the death of the Queen Mother at age 101, the early romance between Prince William and Kate Middleton, the celebration of the Golden Jubilee of the Queen Elizabeth and Prince Charles's marriage to Camilla Parker. Bowling. And if that were not enough, the real-life Queen Elizabeth II died while the final episodes of the show were being filmed.
“We discussed a lot about what would happen if the queen died while we were making 'The Crown,'” Mackie said in a recent Zoom interview from her home in London. “And when it actually happened, of course, none of us were prepared to know how we would react and what it would influence.”
Mackie continued to chat with The Envelope, in eloquent detail, about the show's elliptical approach to the queen's death, its occasional use of artistic license, and the series' trajectory from the first to the final season.
Suzanne Mackie attends the premiere of Netflix's ''The Crown''.
(Phillip Faraone/Getty Images for Netflix)
From the beginning, did you have any idea how long the series would last?
You never know if you're going to make it to six seasons… but we always knew we wanted to cover the queen's reign and take it all the way to 2005. Almost from the beginning, Peter Morgan outlined the six seasons in very broad strokes. He really discovered architecture, which I remember impressed me a lot. And if I look back at the architecture, of course some things would have changed, but overall, it went with the plan.
How did you determine how far to go chronologically?
I felt that, in many ways, the story found its [own] final point. Peter doesn't like to write about something that is still evolving. For him, he must have a kind of historical perspective on [a story]. You have to take a step back and really look at it. As complex and nuanced as his writing is, I think he feels like he needs that kind of distance. That's why we chose the year 2005 as our end point.
With this in mind, how was the final season structured?
[For] The first four episodes will be about Diana and what happened to her and the decision to tell that story in quite a bit of forensic detail; many details, by the way, that I think many people did not know or understand. And then during the second half, from episode 5 to the end, recalibrating around the queen and obviously having the feeling of [Diana’s] Death and what that did, that seismic change for the family, but then it came back to Elizabeth and the future.
Can you talk about the final episode where Elizabeth plans her funeral? If it were already written when qUen died?
It had been written, of course, but then it was influenced, of course, by his passing, but also by the notion that there was a simple new element that changed the course of the episode.
The story remained the same: Prince Charles and Camilla marry and the Queen finally accepts Camilla publicly, and that seemed to be the natural end to our trip. But when she passed away, I think she was [episode director] Stephen Daldry who suggested the idea that the queen could be rehearsing for her own funeral, which we know she did on more than one occasion, by the way, and with great rigor. For us, this was like a tribute to her and allowed us to play with the feeling of something a little more portentous without being opportunistic.
That idea of her planning her own funeral suddenly seemed like a really beautiful thing. And from there came the feeling that we might see the older versions of the queen in Claire Foy and Olivia Colman. She somehow felt within the grammar of what we have always done, which is to invoke the past and invoke the future.
It must be a challenge to sustain a series of such size and magnitude without taking at least some creative liberties. What were some of the instances of that this season?
It's a very, very meticulously researched show, always has been from day 1… I guess, of course, there were the fantasy scenes, like showing the three queens. [in the final episode]. And always the private conversations that we can only imagine could have taken place. I think the engagement (Dodi Fayed's proposal to Diana) was obviously, to some extent, a guess on our part. We know that Dodi bought a ring just before the fatal accident and we knew that the ring was from “Dis-Moi Oui”. [“Tell me yes”] range.
What happened behind each door, in each room, that final trip, those last 24 hours, we were having to imagine. We had to build a story. And I remember Peter saying, “I have to have a point of view. I need to have a story that I have to stick to.” And it would be the truth of him. But it came from a deep respect for them as characters.
