Peter Morgan Isn’t Done With the Royal Family After Ending ‘The Crown’

Netflix’s historical drama The Crowncreated and written by Peter Morgan, has received its fair share of critical acclaim and praise, including 18 Emmy nominations for its sixth and final season. Yet the one group of individuals who have not publicly voiced their opinion is the subject of the series itself: the royal family.

“I’ve heard they love it, I’ve heard they hate it, I’ve heard it all,” Morgan says. THR“I have decided that until a member of the royal family tells me directly, in person, I will not believe anything I hear.”

Here, the showrunner talks about the challenges of running a prestigious TV show for six years and why there are still royal stories he might want to tell.

What did directing six seasons of this series require of you?

Television has become much bigger than we could have anticipated. I went into it almost without really understanding how difficult it was and how much work it required, and I was shocked, actually. But it makes perfect sense. What was traditionally a $15 million or $25 million movie is now at that level. [of television]. The way we made a lot of the films that I had made before, whether it was Frost/Nixon Or The Queen Or The Last King of ScotlandThese films were made no differently in scale than an episode of The Crown. And then all of a sudden you’re committed to doing 10 a season. And then another season of 10 immediately following. So it was more intense and harder work than I expected, and I think it’s only because the material was so enjoyable to write and so enjoyable to work on that I had the energy and the stamina to do all the things I did.

What was the biggest challenge in not repeating what you did in The Queen by telling the story of Princess Diana in the first part of season six?

I had to think about it a lot because right from the beginning, when I was writing the story which was set in the 1950s, even then, I was thinking, ‘My God, what’s going to happen if this series continues and I get to the 1990s, because I don’t want to repeat myself.’ At the same time, I don’t think you can claim to have written a dramatised biography of Queen Elizabeth II without that week after Diana’s death being a central part of it, because with Aberfan [the 1966 mining disaster]It was one of the two most visible failures of his [reign]and both for the same reason: seeing a non-emotional response as a head of state as more appropriate and then being punished for it because people want emotional advice and leadership.

At first, if I hadn’t found Elizabeth Debicki, I’m not sure I would have [told the story] through Diana. I may have done it through the Al-Fayeds, because I thought that seeing it from an outside perspective, racially, so to speak,…