The Crown star Emma Corrin, who rose to fame with her portrayal of Princess Diana in the Netflix drama's fourth season, has given her view on how the royal's final days were portrayed in its closing episodes.
Speaking Josh Horowitz in a new episode of his online series, Happy Sad Confused, Corrin said that watching the final episodes had her "crying like a baby," as she praised actress Elizabeth Debicki.
Corrin portrayed a young Diana, from her meeting with Prince Charles and marriage to the beginning of the breakdown in the couple's relationship. The Crown's fourth season spanned the years 1979 to 1990 and Corrin won a number of awards for her portrayal of the princess, including a Golden Globe.
The show was written and produced by Peter Morgan, who also wrote the 2006 movie The Queen, which examined in detail the monarchy's response to the death of Diana.
The Crown dramatized the life and reign of Queen Elizabeth II through six seasons, each of 10 episodes, and implemented a rotating cast system, where each lead character would be played by a new actor after a two-season cycle.
Diana was introduced as a character half way through the second cycle (Seasons 3 and 4). So when it came time for the fifth season, which dealt with the turbulent breakdown of the Wales marriage, formal separation and the bombshell period known as the "War of the Wales'" the role was taken over by Australian actress Elizabeth Debicki.
Debicki also led the character through the first episodes of Season 6, which dealt with the events surrounding the princess' tragic and untimely death at the age of 36 in a Paris car crash.
Asked by Horowitz if Corrin watched Debicki's take on the character, the actress confirmed that she had.
"I did and I recently had the immense privilege of sitting down with her for 'Actors on Actors' and it was our first time having really got to chat about it and it was a beautiful thing to be able to share," she said. "I didn't watch Season 5 because it was too close. When that came out I was like, 'I don't know how I feel.' It was nothing to do with her or any of the cast it was just me."
"I watched the last season," she added. "And I've got to say, I was crying like a child. I thought her performance was so beautiful and I really didn't expect to be so overwhelmed by emotion...I think what she did was absolutely extraordinary. And only she could have done that."
Debicki's portrayal of Diana also won her critical acclaim. She won a Golden Globe and a Screen Actors Guild Award for the role.
The actress portrayed the princess' years as a doting mother to a young Prince William and Prince Harry, as well as her ever increasingly tormented relationship with the press and paparazzi, something she previously told Newsweek made her value her own privacy even more.
"I've been very fortunate, in a way, doing this job. I've worked really hard and I've loved it. It's been an enormous challenge, but if anything, it's probably made me protect my privacy more, maybe, and really value my 'non-acting normal life,'" Debicki told Newsweek's chief royal correspondent, Jack Royston, in 2023.
"I think maybe it's helped me make that distinction even clearer."
James Crawford-Smith is Newsweek's royal reporter, based in London. You can find him on X (formerly Twitter) at @jrcrawfordsmith and read his stories on Newsweek's The Royals Facebook page.
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About the writer
James Crawford-Smith is a Newsweek Royal Reporter, based in London, U.K. His focus is reporting on the British royal family ... Read more
