Elizabeth Debicki has revealed she felt “overwhelmed” portraying Princess Diana in The Crown.
The Australian actress will play the the “people’s princess” in season five, which is due for release on November 9.
Speaking to British Vogue, the 32-year-old admitted: “I think in the very beginning that did overwhelm me, the idea of this kind of collective [of Diana fans] out there.”
“It’s a trap, right?,” Elizabeth continued. “A swampy quagmire.”
“So, I would stand over the kitchen sink and say, ‘I cannot do this.'”
After receiving the season’s script, she realised: “This isn’t meta. These are characters.”
Elizabeth reflected on filming the scenes in Diana’s infamous “revenge dress”.
today is a good day to remember when princess diana wore the iconic revenge dress, 1994! pic.twitter.com/ntJ2F5vaCa
— Diana moments (@AlwaysbeDiana) October 23, 2022
“It was pressure! It’s a complex dress,” the Australian actress said.
“I let the fittings happen around me while I thought about what the dress meant. Why this dress? She’d had it for two or three years. It was super risqué at the time.”
Princess Diana wore the black off-the-shoulder dress to Vanity Fair’s fundraising dinner for the Serpentine Gallery in Kensington, London, after Charles, now known as King Charles III, admitted to having a relationship with Camilla Parker Bowles on TV.
“She was claiming the space,” Elizabeth theorised. “The way she walked out of that car, the luminosity, the strength of her as that car door opened, she was so fast and so forward.”
THE REVENGE DRESS… pic.twitter.com/Y6u62hnSB9
— female kendall roy (@rhanerys) October 20, 2022
“It’s an extraordinary thing to watch,” Elizabeth continued. “To decide what you’re saying about yourself through fashion… It was a currency. An incredibly powerful currency.”
“I will say it’s a huge gift to learn what I’ve learnt about [Diana]. In so many ways, it’s a story of immense transformation – and triumph too.”
“The public got to watch her evolve into an incredibly strong woman, trying to control a narrative that was the slipperiest thing ever.”
“I hope I’ve done something interesting for her. That’s the ultimate goal.”
It was recently reported that The Crown are set to dramatise Princess Diana’s bombshell interview with Martin Bashir, which Elizabeth will be at the forefront of.
According to The UK Sun, the fifth season of the historical drama, which launches on November 9, will feature two episodes building up to the 1995 interview conducted by the former BBC journalist.
The hour-long Panorama interview is set to be condensed and dramatised into a segment lasting four minutes and 23 seconds.
oh my god pic.twitter.com/PRWSBOksfO
— best of elizabeth debicki (@archivedebicki) November 2, 2022
According to the outlet, a young Prince William is shown watching the interview and being asked by a teacher if he’s alright.
His father, formerly known as Prince Charles, is shown yelling as he watches, and then crying.
The four-minute and 23-second-long segment reportedly shows Diana referencing her “crowded marriage”, referencing Charles’ now-wife and Queen Consort Camilla.
She also says she wants to be “a Queen in people’s hearts”, but doesn’t think she’ll ever be Queen herself.
