The Crown might have come under fire recently for bringing up some of the more controversial and painful moments in the history of the Royal family, but Gillian Anderson believes the show has actually helped its reputation.
Playing former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in the fourth season of the drama, Gillian, 54, defended the Netflix series against claims it caused hurt to the monarchy.
Instead, she said the writers had exercised a lot of ‘kindness and restraint’.
‘It’s a drama. There’s a lot of researchers involved and a lot of people checking and double-checking and triple-checking,’ she said.
‘There’s a lot that has not been written about that could be written about.
‘And if you knew the difference in those, you’d see there is a great deal of kindness and restraint.’
She added to Total Film that ‘at the end of the day,’ they had been ‘incredibly compassionate and well-rounded takes on human beings’.
‘What you’re left with is properly, maturely drawn, complex characters.’
Not mincing her words, Gillian added that there wouldn’t be anything to write about had the Royals not been involved in these scandals.
‘I think the whole family is more internationally loved, celebrated and understood in a way that they wouldn’t be were it not for the show,’ she said.
While she likely had less pressure on her but not playing a member of the family, she admitted that she still held ‘so much fear’ before filming began.
Just this week The Crown came under fire after reports emerged that a scene in the upcoming sixth season would show Princess Diana, played by Elizabeth Debicki, lying in an open casket after her death in a car crash.
A witness on set labelled it ‘obscene’ and said it ‘should be banned from broadcast’.
The Crown is streaming on Netflix.
