Spoilers for The Crown season 3 ahead. It's well-established that Claire Foy, Matt Smith, and other stars of The Crown seasons 1 and 2 are essentially gone from the production at this point. "After two seasons, that's it, I'm gone," Foy told Vulture as early as 2016. "They're getting rid of all of us." But considering how beloved the actors were from the first seasons and the fact that Foy won just about every award imaginable for her performance, it might make sense for the show to at least reference her existence. So do we see her at all throughout the season?
Through the use of the Queen's image on a postage stamp, the trailer directly addresses the change from actor Claire Foy to Olivia Colman, or, as the Queen's private secretary says, "From young woman, to—" "Old bat?" snarks Elizabeth. "Settled sovereign," he replies.
"A great many changes. Nothing one can do about it. One just has to get on with it," she explains, which might as well be a knowing nod to every single viewer to prep ourselves for the new season:
But! Later on in a subsequent episode, the Queen is flicking through photos at her country house, and lo and behold: There's Claire Foy and Matt Smith as Elizabeth and Philip again, in photos with their young children! Elizabeth sighs, "We were so young," in another fun little callback to the fact that the actors have changed in season 3.
Otherwise, there are no flashbacks that contain Foy—there are flashbacks to the two princesses as young girls, though, so it's not like the show ignores her past. In other words, there's no footage that includes Foy, which makes sense in favor of concentrating on the characters as they are now. Several of the new cast (in my humble opinion) don't look very much like their younger counterparts—particularly Helena Bonham Carter as Margaret—so it makes sense that the work on the creators' part is to make sure we accept these new "versions."
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