The Crown creator Peter Morgan: I hope I never have to meet the Queen
The screenwriter behind Netflix's ambitious new royal drama says that after spending his career imagining the private life of Queen Elizabeth, it would be 'embarrassing' to meet her in person
Peter Morgan, creator of Netflix royal drama The Crown, has spent years trying to get inside the head of Queen Elizabeth II – but he says he hopes he never has to meet her in person.
The 53-year-old screenwriter, who has also written about the British monarch in 2006 film The Queen and 2013 play The Audience, says in an interview with Radio Times that he would find it 'embarrassing' to meet her having spent so much of his career fictionalising her private life.
"I hope never to meet her," Morgan said. "I've spent so long thinking and writing about the woman it would feel unnatural and uncomfortable. I'd just be embarrassed."
The Crown, a Netflix historical drama centred upon the beginning of Queen Elizabeth's monarchy, is set to be one the most expensive television series in history, with a rumoured budget of $100 million. Morgan, the creator and writer behind the show, says the aim of his portrayal of the royal family is to try "to make them human beings".
Elizabeth, Morgan claims, "would have much preferred the life of a solid English countrywoman, living with her dogs and breeding horses". Instead, he says "through her eyes, you can see the entire second half of the 20th century."
Morgan added that he was not concerned with the reaction from the Palace, saying "These are the most written-about, satirised, portrait-painted people in the world. What do they care?"
Read the full interview with Peter Morgan, as well as features with The Crown stars Claire Foy and Matt Smith, in this week's issue of Radio Times, in shops and on the Apple Newsstand from Tuesday 1 November. As an added bonus, every reader will be able to claim a special Netflix gift subscription to mark the start of the new royal drama.
