‘The Crown’ Season 6: Elizabeth Debicki Admits Shooting Princess Diana’s Last Days Was ‘Unbearable’
The sixth and final season of Netflix’s The Crown takes viewers to Princess Diana’s final weeks before a car crash that ultimately took her life. The emotional scenes were brutal for Elizabeth Debicki to portray. She claims that shooting the last days of the Princess of Wales for season 6 was “unbearable.”
Elizabeth Debicki said shooting some of the most tragic moments in Princess Diana’s life was ‘heavy’
Elizabeth Debicki has played Princess Diana in the final two seasons of Netflix’s The Crown. The series, which documents the life of Queen Elizabeth II and those relations closest to her, is closing in on the last three decades of the royal family until the present day.
To Deadline, the actor claimed recreating some of the most dissected moments in modern royal family history was “difficult.” She described the task as “heavy and very manic and incredibly invasive.”
“At times, it’s almost like an anomalistic response to being pursued by that many actors playing the press. Because there’s nowhere you can go, and you only have to be in a situation like that for about a minute before you realize this is completely unbearable,” said Debicki.
“And no one should ever have to experience what it feels like to try and get the scenes in the daytime in Paris. Trying to get from one place to another and to have this swarm around you.”
Debicki concluded, “You feel very trapped. It’s a really unpleasant experience.”
Elizabeth Debicki said while being swarmed by paparazzi as Princess Diana, ‘there was not a huge amount of acting going on’
In recreating scenes where Princess Diana was swarmed by paparazzi while visiting France with her boyfriend Dodi Al Fayed, Elizabeth Debicki alluded to more reacting than acting. Filming those scenes made Debicki feel “there was not a huge amount of acting taking place. Because it’s really horrendous to have that many people yelling at you and wanting something.”
However, while the scenes leading up to Diana’s death may be dark, the actor believes that they are balanced. Included are scenes of “real joy, happiness, lightness and genuine fun on the screen.”
Debicki shared, “But that was really the piece I felt that I could control. And that became a real focus. I really needed it. I needed to have a good time, and so we did.”
Will the crash that took Princess Diana’s life be seen in ‘The Crown?’
Netflix shared that the car crash that took the lives of Princess Diana, Dodi Al Fayed, and their driver, Henri Paul, will not be seen on camera. Trevor Reese Jones was the sole survivor of the crash at Paris’s Pont de l’Alma Tunnel, which occurred on Aug. 31, 1997.
However, the series will show the lead-up to the crash, including the heavy paparazzi swarm of the couple throughout the summer of 1997. The Crown director, Christian Schwochow, felt compelled to ensure these scenes were done respectfully.
“It was very, very clear to us that we didn’t want to see her dead body. I actually think that it was not a discussion. Not even in the first version of the cut we would ever see her body,” Schwochow said to Deadline.
The sixth and final season of The Crown debuts its first four episodes beginning November 16. The remaining six installments drop on December 14.
