West’s nerves as he plays his country chum Prince Charles
WHEN he was cast as Prince Charles in The Crown, the naysayers had a field day. Actor Dominic West was too muscular, had too much hair and was far too — well — sexy to play the heir to the throne.
And West now admits that he shared some of those reservations right up to and including the point where he was in costume as Prince Charles and about to step in front of the cameras.
The 52-year-old, who filmed series five of the Netflix hit between August 2021 and February this year, said: ‘It’s quite disconcerting as I didn’t look anything like him when I looked in the mirror. I kept telling the producers that they had cast the wrong person. But they explained that this was not a show of imitations. But that was difficult as this is a real person who is hugely famous and recognisable.’
On top of that, he is replacing actor Josh O’Connor, whose performance as the younger Prince Charles won him an Emmy and a Golden Globe last year.
Sources say that the pressure weighed heavily on the actor — who, nevertheless, delivers a performance which I’m told is ‘sensitive’ and ‘thoughtful’.
To make matters even more awkward he knows Prince Charles, although this may prove the secret weapon which allowed West to nail the performance.
He and the heir to the throne are almost neighbours in Wiltshire — West’s country house with Irish aristocrat wife Catherine Fitz-Gerald is just 14 miles away from Prince Charles’s home, Highgrove. West says: ‘Yes. I’ve met him a couple of times.’ Was he starstruck? ‘Oh, a little bit. But no, not really. I mean, I’m a huge fan of his, but I was far more drawn to meeting [actress] Maggie Smith,’ [after joining the cast of the new Downton Abbey film.]
A long-standing friendship exists between West’s wife, a landscape designer and gardener, and Prince Charles, who is famously green-fingered.
Fitz-Gerald, who was raised in Glin Castle, County Limerick, was chosen to redesign the 100-acre gardens of Hillsborough Castle, the Queen’s official residence in Northern Ireland. She was personally thanked by Prince Charles when the estate reopened in 2019.
They also worked together on a project in Transylvania and have shared links to a cultural charity in the region.
But now, who knows whether The Crown will put paid to an association between the Wests and the Waleses?
Their son Senan portrays Prince William in the show, so the Wests are very firmly on Team Crown.
Catherine and Dominic staged a famously awkward kiss for the paparazzi after he was caught cosying up to actress Lily James in Rome, where they were filming The Pursuit Of Love, in October 2020. The couple also issued a statement which ran: ‘Our marriage is strong and we are very much together.’
FRIENDS of West said that the ‘scandal’ was almost enough to make him walk away from the role in The Crown, which was in the offing at the time.
‘He didn’t want people to perceive him as a love-cheat, playing someone who wasn’t faithful to his wife,’ I’m told.
The Crown hits Netflix in November and will cover the Queen’s annus horribilis, 1992, including the fire at Windsor Castle. Series six will take in the death of Princess Diana (played by statuesque Elizabeth Debicki). P.S. PRINCE CHARLES isn’t the only one to benefit from rather generous casting in The Crown: PM John Major is being played by Jonny Lee Miller of Trainspotting fame.
And we thought that nothing would top the unlikely casting of Bodyguard hunk Richard Madden as Elton John’s boyfriend and manager John Reid in Rocketman!