'The Crown' actor admits playing Prince Philip 'reinforced' his view of Royal Family

Jonathan Pryce admitted that portraying Prince Philip’s character in The Crown ‘reinforced’ his view of the Royal Family.

“I’m not a monarchist, and I thought I would have very little interest in the royal family but my wife Kate and I decided to watch it. We got to the end of episode one, and we turned to each other and said, ‘Shall we watch another one?’,” he said. “We just got hooked.”

The 75-year-old told Yahoo UK and other media; “Changed it? No. It's reinforced my feelings about them.”

"I suppose, looking at Prince Philip it's made me much more aware of the kind of man he was behind the headlines,” he added.

"He spent most of his life getting bad press for saying all the wrong things, usually in the colonies, and finding more about the man who was behind all of that has changed my view of him, essentially."

He said: "I think it's bound to affect their perception of what we do, but I'm confident that the numbers will grow even bigger.

"After the Queen died, the viewing figures went up 500% for previous series of The Crown and I don't want to sound too pompous about it, but I think people will gain a bit of comfort from seeing her embodied again."