The Crown: Gillian Anderson shares behind-the-scenes photo dressed as Margaret Thatcher

Actor played the divisive PM in the Netflix royal drama’s fourth season

Gillian Anderson has shared some amusing behind-the-scenes photos from the fourth season of The Crown.

The X-Files star played former UK prime minister Margaret Thatcher on the hit Netflix royal drama, the latest season of which was released last month.

Posting on social media, Anderson gave fans a look at herself in full Thatcher costume in an ornately decorated room on the set of the series.

“Just trying it out. @thecrownnetflix,” she wrote next to the picture.

Fans reacted excitedly to the post, with one person writing that the photo, in which Anderson nonchalantly dangles her legs over the side of a golden chair, while pulling a face, was “hilarious”.

Since its release in mid-November, The Crown has been at the centre of a debate over factual accuracy, with some royals complaining that the series took too many liberties with the truth.

UK government culture secretary Oliver Dowden suggested that the show should carry a “fiction warning”, alerting viewers to the fact that the series is a work of fiction. 

Netflix has stated that it will not impose such a warning, however, saying it had “every confidence our members understand it’s a work of fiction that’s broadly based on historical events”.

Emma Corrin, the actor who plays Princess Diana in the show’s fourth season, recently addressed the subject, saying that the show presents what is “very clearly a dramatised version of events”. 

“This is fictitious in the same way people don’t mistake Succession for what actually happened with the Murdochs,” she added.