Prince Philip: What Tobias Menzies and Matt Smith said about playing the late royal in The Crown

‘There’s a sort of rebellion in him,’ said Smith, ‘and a naughtiness and a cheekiness’

“Funny”, “intelligent”, “complex”, “frustrated” – these are all words that the actors who played Prince Philip inThe Crown have used to describe the royal, who has died aged 99.

On Friday 9 April, Buckingham Palace announced the death of the Queen’s husband.

“It is with deep sorrow that Her Majesty The Queen announces the death of her beloved husband, His Royal Highness The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh,” the palace said in a statement.

“His Royal Highness passed away peacefully this morning at Windsor Castle. The Royal Family join with people around the world in mourning his loss.”

Tributes have been flooding in for Prince Philip, with Boris Johnson saying “he helped to steer the royal family and the monarchy so that it remains an institution indisputably vital to the balance and happiness of our national life”.

Prince Philip was depicted in many TV series and films, but perhaps the most famous portryal of him has been in the Netflix hit The Crown. When asked at a dinner party whether he had watched the show, he apparently replied: “Don’t. Be. Ridiculous.”

Matt Smith, who played the royal in series one and two, told The Independent in 2017: “When you delve into Philip, and you study him, he’s a very interesting, funny and intelligent man… He’s lived through great tragedy. He was essentially orphaned, sent away to live with his uncle. He’s had quite a tough early life.”

Smith also said he responded to the Prince’s “alpha maleness”, adding: “That conflict that’s in him… I thought, ‘You know what? I wouldn’t want to kneel to my wife!’ I wanted to fight that battle. I get quite defensive over him nowadays.”

Matt Smith as Prince Philip in The Crown (Netflix)

He told Variety that by the end of series two, “you learn a lot more about Philip’s personal history and how that informs him now”. He said: “But he’s still cantankerous old crazy Philip, whom I rather like. I know not many do.”

Smith added: “One of the interesting challenges for me was that I felt there was a sort of a misconception and a preconception about him, which reduced him a bit. And actually all the research I did found him to be brilliantly funny, very clever, very popular. In the royal house he’s the most popular of all of them. If you’ve talked to any of the staff, Philip’s the one they all love really. I think more than a lot of them, he’s a bit more of a man of the people.

“The royal protocol hasn’t dogged him in quite the same way his whole life and there’s a sort of rebellion in him and a naughtiness and a cheekiness. I think he’s quite affable and open by all accounts with the staff. They all love him.”

In The Guardian, Smith described the Prince as a “cool cat”. He added: “Rightly, as a society, we’ve celebrated Elizabeth as a wonderful example of a powerful, stylish, brilliant woman. But in many ways, what an example of a roguish, brilliant man. Why aren’t we as men allowed to celebrate that, fictionally or not? And I just found a lot to celebrate in Philip.”

In 2018, it was announced that Tobias Menzies would take over from Smith in the role of the Prince for series three and four of The Crown.

Menzies told Vanity Fair: “I think he is a pretty complex person. Even though he doesn’t give a lot away in interviews, just atmospherically, you get quite a lot from him. Emotionally, he seems hot to me. There’s always an element of frustration and irritability, and suppressed emotion, it seemed to me. I’m sure all of these, he would pooh-pooh and deny.”

(Des Willie/Netflix)

Like Smith, Menzies also described the Prince as an “alpha male”, speculating that while “[Prince Philip] likes to be busy and to influence things” he has found himself in a “strange, largely ceremonial role where he is second to his wife – and really does not have a huge amount to actually do every day”.

Menzies said the royal made “quips and jokes – some of them not great, famously kind of off-colour”, adding: “But I feel like they’re all expressions of a desire to slightly poke at the structure of things, punch holes in it, just sort of rattle it up a bit. That also feels like an important ingredient in his relationship with Elizabeth… it’s maybe been quite helpful for her over the years to have someone who is able to make her laugh, and kind of take it slightly less seriously, alongside her.”

The actor told the Evening Standard, meanwhile, that the Prince was “provoking at times, not scared of an opinion but there’s a real energy to him, a kind of heat”. He added: “He’s an odd contradiction – one of the most well-known faces and voices in the world yet he doesn’t give much away.”

In the forthcoming fifth series of The Crown, Prince Philip will be played by Jonathan Pryce of The Two Popes and The Wife fame.