‘The Crown’ Season 4 Trailer Introduces Gillian Anderson as Margaret Thatcher

Margaret Thatcher has arrived, and it looks like The Crown will never be the same. Today’s official trailer for the hit historical Netflix series just dropped, giving us a glimpse of what to expect in Season 4 — including Gillian Anderson in full Thatcher mode, right down to the towering wig and signature voice.

Season 4 kicks off in the ’70s with Thatcher’s appointment as Prime Minister. In today’s trailer, we see the tension between her and Queen Elizabeth (Olivia Colman), which begins brewing right from the start when Thatcher arrives at the palace for a meeting. “Your majesty,” Thatcher begins. “I think we have enough respect for one another personally to ask ourselves some of the bigger questions, woman to woman.” She then points out that, although the two women are close in age, she’s the senior.

In a statement released with today’s trailer, The Crown writer and executive producer Peter Morgan said of Thatcher and the queen, “It could be said that they are two very similar women, born only months apart. They are very much defined by the Second World War, by a sense of a sense of frugality, hard work, commitment, Christianity and so much more.”

He added, “It was a commonly held piece of wisdom that the Queen and Thatcher didn’t get on. I think there was probably a lot of respect. But they also had many differences, it was really fun exploring their differences and their similarities. I also get a chance to explore them both as mothers. Writing Thatcher and the Queen as mothers was probably an angle that no one has explored before. It yielded one of my favourite episodes in the season.”

Another important figure enters this season, too, with the introduction of Princess Diana (Emma Corrin). She finds plenty of adoring fans from the public, who swarm her car and wait outside to greet her, but she struggles finding the same love and acceptance with her new family. “All I want is to be loved,” she tells the queen. “That’s all any of us want from you.”

Here’s what we else can expect to see this season, according to Netflix: Queen Elizabeth (Colman) and her family find themselves preoccupied with safeguarding the line of succession by securing an appropriate bride for Prince Charles (Josh O’Connor), who is still unmarried at 30. As the nation begins to feel the impact of divisive policies introduced by Britain’s first female Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher (Anderson), tensions arise between her and the Queen which only grow worse as Thatcher leads the country into the Falklands War, generating conflict within the Commonwealth. While Charles’ romance with a young Lady Diana Spencer (Corrin) provides a much-needed fairytale to unite the British people, behind closed doors, the Royal family is becoming increasingly divided.

Season 4 also stars Helena Bonham Carter as Princess Margaret, Tobias Menzies as The Duke of Edinburgh, Erin Doherty as Princess Anne, Emerald Fennell as Camilla Parker Bowles, Marion Bailey as the Queen Mother, Georgie Glen as Lady Fermoy, Tom Byrne as Prince Andrew, Angue Imrie as Prince Edward, and Charles Dance as Lord Mountbatten. We’ll also see Stephen Boxer as Denis Thatcher, Rebecca Humphries as Carol Thatcher, and Freddie Fox as Mark Thatcher.

The Crown Season 4 premieres on Netflix Sunday, Nov. 15. Watch the full trailer for the upcoming season in the video above.

Stream The Crown on Netflix