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The Crown star Dominic West has opened up about the initial thoughts that he had about the Princess Diana season 6 part 1 ‘ghost’ scene, and why his perception has since changed.
This month, the hit historical Netflix drama is set to finally come to an end, having first launched with Claire Foy playing Queen Elizabeth II in 2016.
Seven years later, the story is being wrapped up in the early 2000s, taking viewers up to the era of the relationship between Prince William (Ed McVey) and Kate Middleton (Meg Bellamy), which began when they were both studying at the University of St Andrews.
Ahead of the release of the final episodes of the entire series, Metro.co.uk spoke to several stars of the show, including Dominic, who plays Prince Charles, and Imelda Staunton as the late monarch.
In the first part of the last season, one particular dramatic device stirred up debate among fans, when a vision of Princess Diana (Elizabeth Debicki) appeared to her ex-husband the Prince of Wales and Queen Elizabeth II after her death in a tragic car accident in Paris.
While the image of Diana has been described as a ‘ghost’ by viewers, some of the creators behind the series have referred to it instead as a ‘memory’ in the imaginations of the royals.
The scene where the late Diana visits the Queen was actually shown in the trailer (Picture: Netflix)
When Metro.co.uk questioned Dominic over what he thought about the mixed responses – with some fans finding it beautiful and moving, and others more unnerving – he revealed how he reacted when he first found out how the scenes were going to unfold.
‘I felt, when I first read it I thought, “That’s a bit of a departure, that feels a bit shocking – not shocking – but unusual in The Crown that you suddenly go sort of supernatural,”’ the 54-year-old shared.
He also brought up the fact that Dodi Fayed (Khalid Abdalla), Diana’s lover who died in the car crash in Paris, also appears to and talks with his father Mohamed Al-Fayed (Salim Daw) after his death.
Dominic continued: ‘But then playing it and then watching it… The Crown is about the emotion, the inner life of public people and how else or how better do you get across what is Charles thinking at that moment, what is the Queen thinking about Diana at that moment? Or what is Al-Fayed thinking about his son at that moment?
‘You know, when you have lost someone, they are that present to you, I think, particularly when they’ve just died and I thought that was a clever dramatic device and valid device to get across what was going on in their heads.’
Charles looks grief-stricken in The Crown when he finds out the news of Diana’s death (Picture: Netflix)
Mohamed Al-Fayed sobs while talking to his late son in the series (Picture: Netflix)
As well as speaking to Charles, the ‘memory’ of Diana also talks to Queen Elizabeth II, telling her that it was never her intention to turn the institution of the Royal Family ‘upside down’.
Metro.co.uk asked Imelda how she felt about the reactions to the late Diana visiting the Queen, to which she replied: ‘I think this question is for the writer.
‘Because you know, I’m doing my job and I haven’t actually seen that episode, so I don’t know how it comes across. So in a way, I think I don’t want to comment on what A, people might not have seen yet and B, what the writers’ intentions were.
‘I think it should be left to you and people watching it to decide how they feel about it. Because as you know, I’m just inside my character, and I’ve been given this scene to do and I will just do that scene. We don’t sit down and go, “Why are we doing that?” So you do it – hopefully, I imagine – as sensitively as you can without it being in any way sort of superfluous.’
The Crown’s costume designers, Amy Roberts and Sid Roberts, opened up to us about how they selected the outfits that Diana and Dodi would be wearing when they visited Prince Charles, Queen Elizabeth and Mohamed Al-Fayed after their deaths.
They outlined how the importance was placing focus on the characters’ faces, as they discussed how when a person remembers somebody who has passed away in real life, they typically remember ‘their face’, rather than their clothes.
‘You don’t have a kind of idea of what they’re wearing, it’s their face,’ Sid said.
‘Amy was saying that she lost her friend recently and when she has conversations with her in her head it’s the face. So I think in terms of colour, we just wanted that all to kind of dissipate.’
Therefore, they chose to dress Diana and Dodi in black for the scenes, with both of them wearing a ‘quintessential silhouette’ – Diana in a sleeveless polo neck, and Dodi in a collarless shirt and blazer.
During the interview with Dominic, Metro.co.uk asked him what he thought about the perception of Charles in the first part of season six, when he is mourning Diana’s death and urging the Queen to be a ‘mother to the nation’.
Charles is shown visiting Diana’s body in the hospital after she’s died, and howling heartbreakingly to the skies while on a walk.
Khalid Abdalla plays Dodi, Diana’s lover who died in the car crash in Paris (Picture: Daniel Escale/Netflix)
Given The Crown is always a blend of historical fact and dramatic imaginings of interactions between real-life figures, the actor used his own personal experiences to inform how he felt Charles would have acted in his state of grief.
‘All I had to go on in those very emotional scenes was my own experience and what would I feel,’ he shared.
‘Other scenes you look at and you can see what Charles did, how he reacted. But in these scenes, where obviously we don’t know how he felt or what went on, all you’ve really got is your own experience, and that’s all really I went on.
‘Given the fact that he’s obviously to me, seems to be an emotional man. You saw straight away as soon as he became King, the pen incident, he’s not like his mother. She was never publicly emotional. He can’t help it.
‘And I think that’s why Peter wrote those scenes. He wrote, “He howls in the hills,” there’s howling and there’s a howling outside the hospital. But that was all I went on.’
The Crown is available to watch on Netflix, with season 6 part 2 due to be released on Thursday December 14 on Netflix.
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Metro.co.uk spoke to the cast ahead of the final episodes of the series.
