Gillian Anderson to Play Margaret Thatcher in Season 4 of ‘The Crown’ (Report)
LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – “The Crown” has found its Iron Lady. Gillian Anderson is said to have signed on to play British prime minister Margaret Thatcher in the fourth season of the much-praised Netflix drama series.
Anderson’s casting was first reported by the Sunday Times . A Netflix rep declined to comment on the report.
Anderson is the latest notable name to join “” in the role of an iconic real-life political figure, following John Lithgow’s turn as Winston Churchill. The series is poised for a shift in its upcoming third season as Olivia Colman moves into the role of Queen Elizabeth II after two seasons of Claire Foy as the monarch.
“The Crown’s” third season is expected to track QE II and the rest of her family in the late 1960s and 1970s. The casting of Anderson as Thatcher indicates that season four will stretch into the 1980s. There’s no word yet from Netflix on a premiere date for season three. Netflix renewed the Sony Pictures TV series for seasons three and four in 2017.
Thatcher, a pillar of the Conservative party, made history as Britain’s first female prime minister, serving from 1979 to 1990. She earned the nickname “Iron Lady” after demonstrating her toughness on the world stage in dealing with everything from foreign policy crisis — she led Britain to a brief military conflict with Argentina over the Falkland Islands in 1982 — to political battles with Britain’s labor unions and other institutions.
Thatcher died at the age of 87 in 2013.
Anderson, best known as FBI agent Dana Scully from “The X-Files,” has been based in Britain for more than a decade. Most recently she’s reprised her signature role on Fox’s “X-Files” revival, and she has a supporting role in the new Netflix dramedy “Sex Education,” also a British production.
