For The Crown’s Season 4, everyone knew that the Margaret Thatcher role would be a huge showcase for the right actress, and there actually was a palpable sense of relief when Gillian Anderson took the part. While Thatcher’s old henchmen came out of the woodwork to complain about Season 4, I think at the end of the day, The Crown was pretty kind to Thatcher overall, and one of the best things the show did was show how deeply removed Thatcher and the Windsors were from the economic devastation Thatcher largely caused. I’m not sure we’ll get the same kind of intense focus on the John Major years, but I still think it was inspired casting to put Jonny Lee Miller in the role. While Major’s former staffers and Tory elders have been throwing tantrums about The Crown right and left, JLM has stayed out of it. He’s barely did any advanced promotion, and it basically looks like he did a brief junket and then showed up to the premiere and that’s it. Still, even Jonny was pretty kind to Major:

Jonny Lee Miller has opened up on his journey playing former Prime Minister Sir John Major during season 5 of The Crown. The actor revealed he had discovered similarities between himself and Sir John and, despite their opposing political views, the more he learned about the politician the more he began to ‘like’ and ‘respect’ him.

Speaking to Metro.co.uk and other press ahead of the season’s release, Jonny shared: ‘I grew up in a very socialist household, a very left-wing household. I’m pretty leftie, and as a youngster at the time, we thought we knew who John Major was and what it was about. He got a lot of flak back in the day,’ he added, ‘[but] the more I learned about him the more I began to like him, and we had a lot of similarities.

‘We’re from the same part of the world – he’s from Worcester Park, I’m from Kingston. We both went to state grammar schools, we had theatrical parents. So I had all these things in common, and then the more you learn about the work that he did – my respect for him grew massively.’

The Elementary actor also said he felt the former PM had been ‘very misunderstood’ as he explained how he had tried to bring his interpretation of him to life.

Through a lot of reading and watching footage of him, but the 49-year-old said that he was ‘trying to fall in love with him. That’s what you’re trying to do really, is you’re trying to inhabit someone, you’re trying to fall in love with him. That’s always a fascinating journey, and especially with someone who I think was very misunderstood, actually, and who I respect greatly.’

[From Metro]

I always sort of forget that Jonny is a socialist. I knew he was left-leaning, for sure, but to hear him talk about his socialist family is pretty great. I can imagine what the Miller family thought about the Thatcher-Major years. Honestly though, history has seen Major as a more effective leader than Thatcher. Maybe Major is due some kind of revisionist history too. Starting with casting a charismatic socialist actor to play him. Anyway, I love that Jonny just sounds unbothered. Dominic West has taken the same tack – just pretend that there’s not a huge royal/Tory campaign against The Crown and breezily promote the show like nothing’s happening.

Photos courtesy of Netflix, JW/Bang Showbiz/Avalon, Avalon Red, Cover Images and Backgrid.