Dame Judi Dench reportedly seriously considered playing the Queen Mother in series five of The Crown.
The 87-year-old was said to have been sent a script while talking to the Netflix drama’s producers about taking on the role, which eventually went to actress Marcia Warren, 78.
According to The Times, sources said both The Crown and Dench were”taking it seriously” – but the publication added there was conflict between the actress and producers over the Queen Mother being a relatively small role, as well as alleged disputes on her payment.
The report comes despite Dench accusing The Crown of being”cruelly unjust” to the royal family. The Oscar winner, who was made a Companion of Honour in 2005 and played Queen Victoria in the films Mrs Brown and Victoria and Abdul, also accused the Netflix show of “sensationalism” and said it should open with a warning it is “fictionalised drama” and not historical fact.
She said in a letter to The Times newspaper on October 19: “The closer the drama comes to our present times, the more freely it seems willing to blur the lines between historical accuracy and crude sensationalism … no one is a greater believer in artistic freedom than I, but this cannot go unchallenged.”
The programme makers have resisted all calls for them to carry a disclaimer at the start of each episode.
”The time has come for Netflix to reconsider – for the sake of a family and a nation so recently bereaved, as a mark of respect to a sovereign who served her people so dutifully for 70 years, and to preserve their own reputation in the eyes of their British subscribers,” she wrote.
Dench added that she was irked by reports the upcoming fifth series of the show would include scenes of the then-Prince Charles, played by Dominic West, lobbying to force his mother Queen Elizabeth’s abdication as she fears it will give an “inaccurate and hurtful account of history”.
Former British Prime Minister John Major has called scenes which will apparently be included showing Charles lobbying him for the monarch to give up the throne as “a barrel-load of malicious nonsense”.
Another reported upcoming scene that has provoked Sir John’s anger is said to show a private conversation between him and his wife Norma in their bedroom when staying at Balmoral. There has also been backlash over the show’s focus on Princess Diana’s death.
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