Imelda Staunton has insisted 'The Crown' "celebrates" Queen Elizabeth.

The 66-year-old actress is the latest star to portray the late monarch - who died in September aged 96 - in the fifth season of Netflix's regal drama, and despite the fact the show has faced criticism and accusations of inaccuracy, she insisted that the heart of the programme is to show why people "admired" the queen for "keeping her promise" to the public.

She said: “You know, people say love, I think they admired (the Queen) and here we are celebrating a woman who… just did the job, not anything outside the job, not the stuff around it. Just a straight line.

“With her connection with horses, and horses have blinkers, and you just go straight on. And that’s what I feel she always did.”

And the 'Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix' actress insisted it was important for the show to portray the royal family's most difficult moments.

She said: “It’s not dramatic being nice and being easy - it’s dramatic when things start to go wrong, and you see how those people deal with those difficulties.”

Imelda recently admitted she was surprised to find herself "inconsolable" when they queen died.

She said: "Everyone was extremely sad and I know I was very inconsolable that evening. My reaction surprised me. Of course, I would feel something. But having lived with her very closely for two years, it felt strange.

"Like I say, the production did stop and then at the schedule we were on, I was off for 10 days. And I was very grateful for that time off to sort of settle back down."