John Lithgow

Because these very familiar characters whom you know in the most public way possible, the queen, the king, the prince, the princesses, to actually go into their lives and see them in intimate settings and having very, very human relationships.

problems and conflicts.

That was what was arresting about the crown.

Well, in a sense, that was true of portraying Churchill this way.

Yes, yes.

I experimented with that when I was still in America before I went over there.

I used a melon baller to create these little balls of apple, and I put them in the back of my cheeks.

Churchill had this unique lisp that was generated by the back of his tongue, and it worked wonderfully.

I even took my melon baller and an apple to one of the first rehearsals, which was nothing but sitting around the table and talking.

But I proposed this idea in front of everybody.

I carved out two little apple balls and stuck them in the back and spoke some of my lines, and I believe I read one of the things.

And it was sensational, but my mouth immediately filled up with apple cider, you know.

I mean, and I was spitting all over the table.

Well, we hired this great toothmeister, a man named Christopher Lyons, who does all the great false teeth for Tilda Swinton and Meryl Streep as Maggie Thatcher.

Well, he made these little silicon plumpers, we called them, that clicked onto my back teeth.

It changed everything.

I mean, it made me sound like Chester because he did have this—he sounded like he had marbles in the back of his mouth.

But it also just made me feel so different from myself.

I mean, I've worked with the RSC, the Royal Shakespeare Company, and at the National, and I've done about 10 roles of Englishman in England.

And I'm better at it.