The Crown: Gillian Anderson says Netflix show could have been less kind to royals

Actor played Margaret Thatcher in season four

Gillian Anderson has argued that The Crown was kinder to the royal family than it needed to be.

The Netflix hit, in which Anderson played Margaret Thatcher, has come under fire for portraying members of the royal family as “villains”.

Royal biographer Penny Junor said: “Every dramatist needs victims and villains and I feel that what [The Crown’s creator] Peter Morgan has done here is portray Diana as the victim and just about every member of the royal family as villains.”

Many have also argued that The Crown should carry a fiction warning given that a number of key scenes are invented. Netflix has said it will not add a disclaimer.

“It's so obvious that we're doing a TV show and that these are characters based on real-life people,” Anderson recently told InStyle. “To me, it just felt like drama for the sake of drama. But I get that there are a lot of people invested.”

She added: “There’s a lot of stuff that could have been written about – but was not – that is so much worse than what ended up in the show. There has been kindness extended in certain areas where it didn't have to be.”

Read more - How accurate is The Crown season 4? Separating fact from fiction

Anderson was in a relationship with The Crown’s creator, Peter Morgan, during the making of the latest season, which was released on Netflix in November. Reports emerged in December that the pair had split after four years.

Morgan himself has defended some of the fabricated scenes in the fourth season of the series, including a historically unsubstantiated plot line concerning Prince Charles (played by Josh O’Connor).