Prince Philip: What Tobias Menzies and Matt Smith said about playing the late royal in The Crown

Sign up to our free IndyArts newsletter for all the latest entertainment news and reviews Sign up to our free IndyArts newsletter Sign up to our free IndyArts newsletter SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. He’s had quite a tough early life.” Smith also said he responded to the Prince’s “alpha maleness”, adding: “That conflict that’s in him… I thought, ‘You know what? I get quite defensive over him nowadays.” open image in gallery Matt Smith as Prince Philip in The Crown He told Variety that by the end of series two, “you learn a lot more about Philip’s personal history and how that informs him now”. I’m sure all of these, he would pooh-pooh and deny.” open image in gallery Like Smith, Menzies also described the Prince as an “alpha male”, speculating that while “ likes to be busy and to influence things” he has found himself in a “strange, largely ceremonial role where he is second to his wife – and really does not have a huge amount to actually do every day”. He added: “He’s an odd contradiction – one of the most well-known faces and voices in the world yet he doesn’t give much away.” In the forthcoming fifth series of The Crown, Prince Philip will be played by Jonathan Pryce of The Two Popes and The Wife fame.