‘The Crown’: Prince Charles and Princess Diana Actors Talk About How Accurate Their Marriage Is on the Show
Season 4 of The Crown dives into Prince Charles’ relationship with Diana Spencer. Being such a charged time in history for the royals, the Netflix series’ fans have been anticipating this season since the show’s inception.
But just how much of Prince Charles and Princess Diana’s marriage is “real?” The actors behind the characters, Josh O’Connor and Emma Corrin, talk about how accurate their portrayal is.
Emma Corrin says her version of Princess Diana in ‘The Crown’ is just one interpretation
In an interview with Sky News on Nov. 15, Corrin reminded fans of the show that, at the end of the day, The Crown “is Peter [Morgan’s] version of events,” “a jumping off point to tell a story.”
“I think the crux of The Crown is, look at these icons, look at these figureheads who we think we know,” she said. “Oh, wait, actually, behind that, behind the closed doors is all this human experience. And I really think it’s the most fascinating thing to examine these people who are in the most extraordinary circumstance, the strangest kind of existence, and to see the nuances of what they go through.”
Initially, Corrin felt the immense pressure of portraying such an iconic, historical person. But the pressure eased when “I realised it was my interpretation of her, I suppose, that was going to be shown.”
Josh O’Connor wouldn’t have wanted to play Prince Charles if ‘The Crown’ was ‘copying’ the royals exactly
O’Connor says the artistic interpretation of the royals is what drew him to the project, not the historical accuracy.
“I wouldn’t have been massively interested in doing it I don’t think, if we were doing some sort of mimicry or keeping too much to the real people, because The Crown isn’t that,” he told Sky News. “I mean, what’s interesting about The Crown is the stuff we don’t know, and it’s the fiction, it’s the speculation of what happened behind the closed doors.”
The actor goes on to say that “what’s interesting is the speculation.”
“What could he be like in real life?” he asked of Charles. “How does he exist? What were his relationships like? And so that’s what, to me, it was kind of… you get the little gestures, doing that (he pretends to adjust his cuff, a la Charles) and the pointed out neck and all that stuff, and then beyond that it’s just about telling a real story and being true to the character in the script, really.”
Nobody knows how Prince Charles and Princess Diana’s marriage really was, even ‘The Crown’
The Crown gets many historical moments correct. But the fun of the show is all of the blank space in between. Still, O’Connor says he and Corrin try to tell an “unbias” story.
“The thing that Emma and I set out to do is tell as unbias a story as possible and just try and lay out… a version of how marriage tragically breaks down,” he said. “It’s never one-sided, people have their own failings and their own positives. So hopefully people come out and don’t hate them too much.”
“None of us know what their marriage was like in real life,” he added.
