Elizabeth Debicki interview: ‘The Crown’
Elizabeth Debicki admits that she “didn’t know very much,” about Princess Diana before joining “The Crown.” In our recent webchat, she adds, “My knowledge was this very slim imprint from my childhood. I had to learn what the preconceptions were, then I had to embed them into myself, then I had to discard them. I was riddled with a lot of doubt. I had to do a lot of searching in myself to have the confidence to just go for it.” Watch our exclusive video interview above.
“The Crown” chronicled the reign of Queen Elizabeth II for the Netflix series created by Peter Morgan. Every two seasons the cast reset to showcase a different time of the longest serving monarch’s life. For the final two seasons, Debicki played Princess Diana. The actress says, “I watched this show long before I knew I was gonna be in it. I did what everybody does; I watched and then went to Wikipedia. In a funny way, as an actor, you have to make room for your own preconceived ideas. And you have to make space for people to bring their own memory to it. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever done before.”
With the series wrapped, she reflects, “Being inside that part just filled me up so much. It was a very alive place. There’s so much joy in that person and her attempt to connect all the time. It gave me license to tap into that in myself, which is not something that I maybe do enough.”
The actress also notes that the role was “about love, the need for it and what happens when you don’t have it. How a person maneuvered through their life to find that is the thing that was driving my Diana a lot of the time.”
In 2020, “The Crown” won the Best Drama Series Emmy. Debicki is nominated this year for Drama Supporting Actress. She submitted the third episode of the season, ‘Dis-Moi Oui,’ for consideration. In the episode, Diana rejects a proposal from Dodi Fayed (Khalid Abdalla) shortly before getting in the tragic car accident that stopped the world. Debicki reveals, “We did our best to tread lightly. We were very aware of the imagery and what it would mean. It was difficult. Khalid and I cared deeply about making sure that, in our interpretation, there were moments of grace.”
Playing Diana, the actress reflects, “I learned a lot about myself. I think it’s about how you prioritize your life and what you have. At the end of the day, it’s the people in your life. They deserve the best of you, as much as you can give them. You have to make space for that. It was an important thing for me to explore through somebody who automatically did that.”
