The Princes of The Crown pay tribute to Prince Philip: ‘It won’t be the same without you’
Prince Philip #PrincePhilip
The Royal family has long been given the Hollywood treatment, and so it wasn’t a surprise when the actors who portrayed Prince Philip, who died Friday at the age of 99, on Netflix’s The Crown paid tribute to the man they played on screen.
“I’d like to offer my condolences to Her Majesty the Queen and the Royal Family,” Matt Smith said in a statement to EW. “Prince Philip was the man. And he knew it. 99 and out, but what an innings. And what style.”
He added: “Thank you for your service old chap – it won’t be the same without you.”
Smith stared as the Duke of Edinburgh for the first two seasons of the Netflix drama. The series began with Philip and Queen Elizabeth II (Claire Foy) in 1947 as Philip had just renounced his Greek and Danish titles waiting for his soon-to-be father-in-law King George VI (Jared Harris) to give him his new honorific. The role earned Smith an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series in 2018.
Fellow Brit Tobias Menzies took over for Smith in seasons 3 and 4 when it jumped over to the ’60s and ’70s. Menzies said in a tweet on Friday that Philip wouldn’t much care for an actor who played him to sing his praises. So, naturally, Menzies turned to Shakespeare.
“If I know anything about the Duke of Edinburgh I’m fairly sure he wouldn’t want an actor who portrayed him on TV giving their opinion on his life, so I’ll leave it to Shakespeare. ‘O good old man! how well in thee appears The constant service of the antique world…’ RIP” he wrote.
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Menzies spoke to EW in 2019 about his experience portraying Philip at an older age. “I’ve certainly found Philip a lot more interesting than maybe I knew, because of his childhood and his journey, that he’s an outsider, and also, actually now I realize, he’d done an interesting job of carving out his position,” he said.
Earlier, the streamer released its own statement on Philip’s passing: “Netflix, Left Bank Pictures, Sony Pictures Television, and the production team on The Crown are deeply saddened to hear of the death of The Duke of Edinburgh. Our thoughts are with the entire Royal Family at this sad time.”
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