‘The Crown': Jonny Lee Miller to Play Prime Minister John Major in Season 5
Jonny Lee Miller will play former Prime Minister John Major in Season 5 of “The Crown,” it was announced Friday. Major served as prime minister and leader of the Conservative Party from 1990-97.
Miller is part of a massive casting shuffle for the Netflix series: Imelda Staunton will replace Olivia Colman as Queen Elizabeth II, Helena Bonham Carter’s Princess Margaret will be played by Lesley Manville, Jonathan Pryce takes over the role of Prince Philip from Tobias Menzies and Elizabeth Debicki will replace Emma Corrin as Princess Diana.
The fourth season of “The Crown” was released in November 2020, but fans will have to wait until 2022 for Season 5. Last July, series creator Peter Morgan announced the show would end with Season 6.
“As we started to discuss the storylines for Series 5, it soon became clear that in order to do justice to the richness and complexity of the story we should go back to the original plan and do six seasons,” Morgan said in a statement at the time. “To be clear, Series 6 will not bring us any closer to present-day — it will simply enable us to cover the same period in greater detail.”
Season 4 concluded with the queen (Colman) forbidding her son Prince Charles (Josh O’Connor) from separating or divorcing Diana (Corrin).
British-born Miller is best known for playing Sherlock Holmes on the CBS drama “Elementary” from 2012-19.
Check out the casting announcement below: