Charles and Diana of the Crown: ‘I hope people don’t hate...

The crown has accepted royal births and deaths, national crises and personal scandals, and seen prime ministers come and go.

But now that the big-budget drama steps into the glamor of the 1980s, it is the era of Diana and Margaret Thatcher – two of the most talked about public figures of the century – things get even more interesting.

A relatively unknown, 24-year-old actress, Emma Corrin, joins the fray as Lady Diana Spencer, the future People’s Princess, a role that will almost certainly make her a household name in season four The crown starts in November.

Idolater, criticized, scrutinized, Diana’s memory is forever tied to the fallout after the breakdown of their relationship Charlesand the controversial circumstances of her death; Millions feel like they know their story, which makes it a huge role to play.

“It’s incredibly daunting,” Corrin told Sky News in a Zoom interview on-screen alongside her royal husband. Both look decidedly less regal and chat much more relaxed from their sofas than from the royal crown sets.

Has she thought about the possibility? Harry and Wilhelm watch when she took on the role?

“I’m not trying to think about whether people are seeing it because I think it’s a slippery slope,” she says. “You can’t really control if they are doing it and even when you start to think about it, ‘I wonder what they are going to think’ … It’s kind of, yeah, it’s pretty stressful.”

When Diana died in a Paris hospital in the early hours of August 31, 1997 after a car accident, Corrin was still a baby. She took on the role and wanted to make sure she had done her homework, she says, in addition to the hours researchers spent on the show.

“Basically, I learned pretty quickly that – because I tried to do a lot of research and read a lot of biographies, a lot of newspapers, footage, and records of Diana – and the problem is, when you look at that species, it’s actually very one-dimensional and you get the tabloid news, really, everything is very factual, “she says.

“It’s all, she went here with this person and then she was seen with this person and then, oh, apparently she likes to eat figs. It’s kind of like what is this really going to do for me?

“And then I went through the scripts about a month after the part and that really helped because all of a sudden I had a story, I had a context.”

Many fans of The Crown may be able to overturn judgment on what is fact and what is fiction, while others no doubt believe that every word on the screen is as it is played.

Having the script in front of you was a reminder that the series is a fiction, says Corrin, sticking the pen in the bladder, all expertly by creator Peter Morgan.

“This is drama, this is Peter’s version of events,” says the actress. “We use these real people as a starting point to tell a story that really …

“I think the gist of The Crown is, look at these icons, look at these figureheads that we think we know. Oh wait, actually, behind the closed doors is all of this human experience. And I really think the most fascinating thing is to examine these people who are in the most extraordinary circumstances, the strangest kind of existence, and seeing the nuances of what they are going through.

“So yeah, I guess the pressure and feeling of being overwhelmed [Diana] Being such a public figure disappeared when I realized it was my take on her that was about to show up. ”

We’ve already seen glimpses of Corrin’s Diana in beautifully shot, lavish-looking photos and a trailer that teased fans before it kicked off – a picture surrounded by paparazzi, one shyly looking into the camera, head tilted and of course a dramatic one Recording the wedding dress; Significantly, alone, those famous bloated shoulders that plump her tiny body and the huge pull that spreads out behind her.

The wedding, which Charles is said to have never wanted on Wednesday, July 29, 1981, is such a pivotal moment in the couple’s history – yet Corrin’s time on screen for their big day is fleeting (despite the hours that have passed need to get this dress just right). Because we know what happened when the world was watching; What The Crown does best is filling in the blanks – what happened, or its version of what happened behind closed doors.

We see Diana in the run-up to the festivities: she celebrates her engagement with friends; dance to Stevie Nicks; alone and lonely in Buckingham Palace; struggling with bulimia.

In one scene she is rolling through the palace – “I think she is [really] did that, “says Corrin – Duran Duran’s Girls On film blows up her Walkman. Moments like this were the ones the actress really wanted to think about.

“You know what, it was something like that, it was the roller-skating, the feeling of fun that she obviously had before she got royalty and that she kind of claimed, which I find pretty rare,” she says.

“Roller skating through Buckingham Palace is a great example. Also the dancing, her dancing and how much that meant to her and how she used it as a form of expression. I really loved discovering that. ”

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O’Connor, who has already run a series, avoids the question of considering the real Prince Charles or Harry and William and possibly watching him in the role. Instead, he says he wouldn’t have wanted the part if the show was about copying what we see of the royals.

“I wouldn’t have cared too much, I don’t think if we’d done some kind of mimicry or done too much for the real people, because The Crown isn’t,” he says. “I mean, what’s interesting about The Crown is what we don’t know, and it’s fiction, it’s speculation about what happened behind the closed doors …

“There’s a great Todd Haynes movie called I’m Not Here that is about Bob Dylan. There are eight actors playing versions of Dylan, and they’re all versions of his personality, not actually Bob Dylan. And the reason it’s so good is because we all know what Bob Dylan looks like and how he speaks in public. But that’s not interesting, I’m not interested in seeing that.

“What’s interesting is the speculation, how could he be in real life? How does he exist? How were his relationships? And so it was kind of for me … you get the little gestures that (he) pretends to do, adjust his cuff (a la Charles) and the highlighted neck and all that stuff, and beyond that, it’s just about getting a real one Telling a story and being really true to the character in the script. ”

In one scene we see Diana being taught the rules of becoming a queen. The “wildness” of the regulations surprised them, says Corrin.

“I didn’t really appreciate the fact that there are so many things, so many different things that don’t make sense,” she says. “It’s just silly royal traditions you think, why are you still doing this? It’s mental. But very interesting to learn. ”

In this series we see more of Charles’ relationship with Camilla Parker Bowles, who befriends Diana.

Does O’Connor sympathize with his character? „“Yeah, sure, “he says.” Hopefully people do. ”

During season three, when Diana was not in the picture and the audience saw Colman’s Queen sabotage her eldest son’s relationship with Parker Bowles, people told him how sorry they were for Charles “and how awful it must have been , and god, he was treated really badly and he’s so cute and nice, “says O’Connor.

After Diana enters the timeline, it’s a different story.

“Now … you’ve forgotten all about it and they say, ‘He’s terrible, he’s a terrible man. Why do you play [him] so evil? ‘In a way, that means I did my job right.

“I dont know. I think I have a lot of empathy for him personally and hopefully people will. What Emma and I set out to do is to tell a story as impartially as possible and just try to create a version of it. The marriage tragically breaks down. It is never one-sided, people have their own faults and their own positive aspects. Hopefully people will come out and not hate them too much.

“None of us know what their marriage was like in real life.”

The fourth season of the Crown kicks off on November 15 on Netflix