“I’ve never told anybody this, but it’s one of my proudest achievements,” boasts Debicki, describing the moment she burst into a rehearsal of The Crown and introduced the YouTube video of Charles break-dancing to West. “I was like, ‘You have to see this video. It’s the best thing I’ve ever seen…I showed it to Dom and…I said, ‘You just watch, I’m gonna get this in [The Crown somehow.’ He says, ‘Don’t you dare.’”
When series creator Peter Morgan arrived to the rehearsal later, Debicki recalls, “I played it quite cool. We sort of went through the rehearsal and as I was walking out the door, I went, ‘Oh, Peter, have you seen that video of, um, Charles break-dancing?’ And I like literally got it up on YouTube.” Speaking about Morgan’s decision to then add the sequence to season five, the actor says proudly, “That’s my claim to fame…. It is one of those lightbulb moments…you think, look at this person [in the video]…the commitment and it’s also kind of joy…and the multilayered moment…of joy and playfulness and sort of very childlikeness.”
While preparing to play Diana, Debicki heard anecdotes about and saw videos of Diana that distilled certain qualities of the late princess that she tried to capture herself onscreen. One person told the actor about having to give a formal speech while the late princess, who was seated next to the speaker, pinched her bottom to try to get the person to react. “There’s these moments where that spirit burst out,” the actor recalls.
In a video she found online, Diana’s “receiving this award and she looks incredibly glamorous and calm and she’s [giving] her speech about children and what they need and how as a society we care for our children…There was a sort of heckler in the background, and this person yells very loudly across the auditorium, ‘Where are your children?’ And she takes this immensely beautiful pause. And then she just looks up and she says, very calmly, ‘At school.’ [It’s] one of the moments where you think, ‘Wow, what an incredible collected [person to have] earned how to manage that. You did not fall into a million pieces. You kept your center so strong.’”
Debicki adds that she has such “love and respect for this character,” that she’s hoping to take “the good bits” of Diana with her after retiring the role. “I’m not letting go of those bits,” she says.
The actors also spoke about what season six holds for The Crown’s characters, the psychic toll of playing Diana in such a lonely time of her life, and the other entertainers who have played Charles and Diana in the past.
Julie Miller
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