Despite the fact we have yet to see the acclaimed royal drama’s penultimate season hit Netflix, pre-production on its sixth and final run is already underfoot. Although filming won’t begin until later this year, The Crown season six is busy assembling its cast, with two new key members of the Windsor family set to be brought to life before the series comes to its conclusion.
Namely, Prince William, Duke of Cambridge and eldest son of Prince Charles and Princess Diana, and his wife, Kate Middleton, Duchess of Cambridge. This September 2nd has seen Netflix announce who is due to bring the couple to life, and yet again the show has found uncanny lookalikes to play the young William and Kate. Read on to find out who has been cast in the roles.
Who’s playing William and Kate?
As first reported by Deadline, both Rufus Kampa and Ed McVey have been hired to play William in The Crown season six while Meg Bellamy is filling the part of Kate. Kampa is set to portray the teenage William in the earlier half of the season while McVey will play William in his 20s. Bellamy will appear opposite McVey in the later part of the final run.
See side-by-side images of the actors and the youthful William and Kate via the tweet below:
This is the first professional screen credit for all three performers, although Kampa has previously landed the title role in the West End production of The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole 13 & 3/4s: The Musical. McVey, meanwhile, graduated Drama Centre London last year and since then has understudied in Camp Siegfried at London’s Old Vic Theater. Bellamy and McVey landed auditions for their life-changing roles after submitting self-taped videos in response to a social media casting call.
What can we expect from William and Kate in season six?
As The Crown season five is set to cover the end of the 1980s and the early 1990s, the sixth season will then address the period of the late ’90s and early 2000s, which was a tumultuous time for the Windsors.
Kampa will no doubt turn in a moving performance as he is due to star in episodes which will explore how the royal family dealt with the sudden death of Diana Spencer after she died in a car crash in August 1997, when William was just 15 years old. McVey will then explore happier times for the prince, when he was studying Art History at the University of St. Andrews. It was here, in 2001, when William first met fellow student Kate. The couple eventually married a full decade later in 2011.
Casting details for William’s younger brother, Prince Harry, have yet to be revealed. It is worth pointing out, however, that Harry’s marriage to Meghan Markle will not be adapted for the series. As said above, The Crown‘s story only extends to the early 2000s so any events from the latter half of that decade and the 2010s will be left unexplored.
Featuring Imelda Staunton taking over from Olivia Colman as Queen Elizabeth II, The Crown season five is scheduled to resume its reign over Netflix sometime this November. Going by previous release patterns, season six will likely follow at the same time of year in 2023.
