Which actor won a Primetime Emmy for playing Winston Churchill in The Crown?

John Lithgow won a Primetime Emmy for playing Winston Churchill in The Crown. He received the 2017 award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series for his performance in the episode “Assassins,” which explored Churchill’s political and personal pressures during the early years of Elizabeth II’s reign.

Lithgow’s Churchill is one of the show’s most recognizable supporting performances. The drama presents the wartime prime minister as both formidable and vulnerable, balancing his immense public reputation with declining health and the burden of returning to office after the Second World War.

The award is specifically a Primetime Emmy, not merely a nomination. Lithgow also received other major recognition for the role, including a Screen Actors Guild Award. Viewers sometimes confuse him with Jared Harris, who plays Elizabeth’s father, King George VI, or Alex Jennings, who plays the Duke of Windsor. Lithgow’s Emmy-winning character is Churchill, the prime minister who dominates much of the first season.