GET A CLUE

Heavy Is the Puzzle Head That Wears ‘The Crown’

How we managed to fit as many actors’ names as possible into one small puzzle.

Rebecca Tulis

By Matt GaffneyPublished Sep 27, 2021 4:55AM EDT

The Emmys were last Sunday, and the big news was that The Crown had swept all 7 Drama categories. It was something no show had ever done: Outstanding Drama Series, both Lead Actress and Lead Actor, both Supporting Actress and Supporting Actor, Best Writing, and Best Directing, all in the Drama genre.

Impressive, but surely that's too many names to fit into a wee 10x10 crossword grid, right? Come on! What kind of an attitude is that? I at least thought I'd give it a shot, and the result is last Tuesday's puzzle.

First pro move: I worked The Crown itself into the first clue, so now I had "only" six names to work into the grid. It really had to be all six, since leaving just one out would look weird. They are: OLIVIA COLMAN, JOSH O'CONNOR, GILLIAN ANDERSON, TOBIAS MENZIES, JESSICA HOBBS, and PETER MORGAN.

Second pro move: I allowed myself to use either the first or last name of each to maximize flexibility. As you can see from the grid below, four first names (in orange) made it in, along with two last names (in blue). 4-2 is fine, but 5-1 would've looked a little weird.

The rest of the grid didn't suffer too badly from all those names, if I do say so myself. EAVE is a bit suspect (usually that part of a roof only appears in the plural, eaves) but other than that, I'd say it worked out pretty well.