All About Angus Imrie, The Actor Who Plays Prince Edward in 'The Crown' Season 4
Prince Edward is decidedly the quietest of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip's four children. He's managed to largely stay out of the spotlight given his status as eleventh in the line of succession, compared to his siblings Prince Charles, Princess Anne, and Prince Andrew. Similarly, Angus Imrie, the 26-year-old actor who plays Edward on The Crown's fourth season, is a British actor who's still relatively unknown—but that could all change very soon.
Imrie appears throughout the latest installment of the Netflix series, particularly in episode 4, “Favourites.” During a tense scene with Olivia Colman's queen, Imrie hints at the bullying and inner turmoil Edward faces beneath his polished surface. This wasn't the first time Imrie and Colman had worked together, as they both appeared in season 2 of Fleabag. Ahead, five facts to know about the emerging actor, from his show biz upbringing to his stint as "Creepy Jake" on Fleabag.
He's appeared in several TV shows and films, including Fleabag and Emma.
Prior to his role as Prince Edward, Imrie built up quite the resumé in British entertainment. He played another royal, Prince Arthur, in The Spanish Princess miniseries and played Young Merlin in The Kid Who Would Be King alongside Patrick Stewart. But Imrie may be best known for playing "Creepy Jake," the bassoon-playing son of Martin (Brett Gelman) and stepson of Claire (Sian Clifford) in Phoebe Waller-Bridge's Fleabag.
"It was an amazing creative process," Imire told The Yorkshire Post of working on the Emmy-winning series. "There were times when Phoebe would say in the middle of filming, 'This isn’t working, I’m going to rewrite it.' It was so fresh and vital. Every moment really mattered."
The way my jaw dropped when it clicked that Claire's creepy stepson Jake from #Fleabag was playing Prince Edward on #TheCrown. ?? pic.twitter.com/RCwUZaafnf
— birthday dad (@_Lindsay_Ross_) November 16, 2020
Recently, Imrie appeared in the 2020 re-imagining of Emma (which co-starred The Crown's Josh O'Connor) and the new HBO series Industry, which follows the lives of twenty-somethings in the financial trade.
Both his parents are actors.
Imrie was born to well-respected British actors Celia Imrie (Better Things, Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again) and the late Benjamin Whitrow (1995's Pride and Prejudice, Darkest Hour), who passed away in 2017. According to Celia's 2011 memoir The Happy Hoofer, she and Whitrow decided to have Angus together—but not to live together as a couple.
"Ben and I walked on the beach one day as I laid out my terms," she wrote, per the DailyMail. "As long as he understood I would not ask for anything, I wouldn't want to live with him, or marry him, would never ask for money for the child and I would be responsible for choosing and paying for the child's education, accommodation, clothing—everything. If Ben could take all that on board, I said, then his offer to fulfill my wish for a child would be wonderful. He has proved to be a marvelous father." After Whitrow's death in 2017, Celia reportedly admitted they had a romantic relationship and opted to keep it quiet after he separated from his first wife, Catherine Cook.
He discovered a love of acting while at school.
Imrie may have grown up in an entertainment household, but his passion for acting actually developed during his education, he told Collider. "Well, the thing is, when I was growing up and fell in love with acting, I never really associated it with what my parents did, because what they do is a job and everything, and it was on film sets," Imrie explained. "It was very different from when I found the love for performing in stuff at school, and it was really just doing stuff for an audience and getting that immediate response," he continued. Later, he added, "it became something that was really wonderful to be able to share with my parents. But it was only after having discovered it independently."
According to Imrie's LinkedIn, he earned a BA in English Literature and Theatre at the University of Warwick. While there, he won Spotlight Most Promising Actor of 2014 at The Sunday Times National Student Drama Festival. From 2015 to 2017, he attended the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA), which catapulted him into stage work at the historic Shakespeare's Globe.
His dream collaborators include Paul Thomas Anderson and Mark Rylance.
During his 2019 Collider interview, Imrie discussed his inspirations in the entertainment industry. "There are several. Mark Rylance is one of my great heroes," he told the outlet. "He's been a fantastic theater actor for many years, and probably not as well known as he is now after working with Steven Spielberg, but I've seen him in the theater several times and I think he's absolutely superb."
As for which filmmaker Imrie is most itching to work with, it's none other than Paul Thomas Anderson. "His films are mysterious and strange and I love the way that they all seem to have a strange twist at the end that kind of subverts your whole understanding of the film up until to that point," Imrie explained to Collider. "I love their pacing, and I think the way that he takes very different subject matters and projects each time is really inspiring for a director."
He doesn't appear to have active social media.
Like the character he plays on The Crown, Imrie keeps his personal life relatively private. Unlike most up-and-coming actors, his social media feed isn't filled with selfies or sponsored posts. In fact, it appears that (for now) Imrie isn't active on any verified social media, something that could change after his stint on the hit Netflix show.
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