CNN
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Dame Judi Dench has played a British Queen before, and now she’s talking about the popular Netflix drama of the royal family.
In a letter to the Times, The esteemed actress shares her concerns about the upcoming new season of “The Crown,” writing that “the closer the drama is to our times, the freer it seems to blur the lines between historical accuracy and crude thriller.”
Dench wrote, “While many will recognize The Crown as the brilliant but imaginative description of events, I fear that a good number of viewers, especially abroad, might take his version of history as entirely correct.” “Given some seemingly hurtful suggestions in the new series – that King Charles conspired his mother to abdicate, for example, or once suggested that his mother’s paternity was so deficient that she might have deserved a prison sentence – that is cruelly unfair to individuals and damaging to the institution that represent them.”
The series’ fifth season begins on November 9 in the United States and is set during the 1990s in Britain.
“As Queen Elizabeth II (Imelda Staunton) approaches her fortieth anniversary, she reflects on an era that included nine prime ministers, the rise of mass television and the twilight of the British Empire,” the Netflix summary of the new season reads in part. However, new challenges loom on the horizon. ”
The broadcasting giant released the trailer for Season 5 on Thursday with the description, “Inspired by true events, this fantasy drama tells the story of Queen Elizabeth II and the political and personal events that shaped her reign.”
Dench added her concerns to those of former Prime Minister Sir John Major, who had recently done so mail said That the scene allegedly showing him then Prince Charles (played by Dominic West) discussing a plot to overthrow his mother, Queen Elizabeth while the Major was in office, was “a barrel load of malicious nonsense”.
Major called for a boycott of the show, and Netflix has reportedly defended the series as a “fantasy drama.”
“No one believes in artistic freedom more than me,” Dench wrote, “but this cannot go unchallenged.” Despite publicly declaring this week that The Crown has always been a ‘fantasy drama,’ the show’s creators have resisted all calls for them to carry a disclaimer at the beginning of each episode.
“It’s time for Netflix to reconsider — for a recently lost family and nation, as a sign of respect for a sovereign who has faithfully served his people for 70 years, and to keep his reputation in the public eye,” added Dench, who won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her role as Elizabeth I. In the 1998 movie Shakespeare in Love.
CNN has reached out to Netflix for comment.
