Diana role felt `insurmountable'
The Crown actress Debicki admits royal portrayal took time to master
Elizabeth Debicki may have won rave reviews for playing Princess Diana in the new season of royal drama The Crown, but the Australian actor says the role felt “insurmountable” when she first took it on.
The 32-year-old joins the award-winning Netflix series chronicling the reign of Queen Elizabeth II for season 5, which portrays the royals in the 1990s when they faced marital upsets, public dissent, and a fire at Windsor Castle.
“It was utterly daunting and I would never say anything other than the truth about that. It was a huge challenge and it felt insurmountable at the beginning,” Debicki said in an interview. “It was overwhelming to begin with and then it eventually ... funnelled down to something that felt manageable. And I think the process of that was like anything ... you just have to sort of jump the line and start to do it.”
Debicki, known for miniseries The Night Manager and 2020 film Tenet, said things got better once she got the scripts.
“That was sort of the real penny-dropping moment because then you realize you can treat it like a job, where here is your character, here are your lines and this is the scene, so that was a relief,” she said.
The Crown has drawn criticism and calls for disclaimers over its dramatized storylines. Some commentators have voiced concern over season 5 airing just two months after the Queen's death and the impact it could have on the reign of her son, King Charles.
Netflix describes The Crown as “fictional dramatization,” inspired by real events.
One of the main plot lines in the newest season follows Charles and Diana's divorce. It shows Diana, then one of the most photographed women in the world, increasingly isolated.
Debicki said one of her biggest challenges was learning to mimic Diana's voice.
“It was so important for me to get the dialect and the voice as close to something that's really recognizably hers, and that was challenging,” she said. “When you try and learn someone else's voice and dialect, it's this crazy unravelling of everything you feel comfortable about. So ... I really gave it a lot of time because I thought it's so important that it's right.”