Here...
is the stuff of which fairy tales
are made.
A prince and princess
on their wedding day.
But fairy tales usually
end at this point.
With the simple phrase.
They lived happily ever after.
Well, first of all, congratulations that
your performances were excellent, and I
thought it was really vivid.
And I guess I want to start by asking
you both what your impressions of
Charles and Diana's relationship before
taking on these roles.
I feel like my impression of had always
just been this aura of like her being
an icon, her being...
everyone being incredibly attached to her, her
being incredibly empathetic and sensitive.
And I think kind of ahead of her time in
terms of the
way she cared so charitably for other people.
Didn't really have any, like, proper
impression. I feel like I've, almost my
impression is completely change and not in
any fundamental way, but just in
I feel like I've kind of gone behind the
icon and actually kind of worked
out her experience.
I think in terms of
the two of them, maybe as a as a couple, I
think I always imagined I always had a
I suppose I always like a lot of people, I
thought Charles maybe was the more
guilty of the two because
maybe he'd given up on the marriage first.
I don't know. I think, you know, just
playing it with Emma and working out with
Emma and talking it through with Emma and
looking at Peter's writing and talking to
the writing team, I think it just felt
immediately apparent that if we're going to
tell this story in any way, that in
any kind of authentic way, it has to be
two sided and it has to be kind of
two sides of the coin.
How many times can this family make
the same mistake.
Paying the consequences each time.
All I want is to be loved.
It's all any of us want from you.
I mean, this is a relationship that many
people feel like they have a really
good grasp on. It's been covered extensively
in the press in biography's.
What were you both hoping to bring to a
story that so many people think they already
know?
I guess I think as
we as we started the filming process,
and Josh and I started working on it, we
just became increasingly aware that
their relationship was
so...it wasn't black and white.
You know, there wasn't it didn't just
fail.
Charles wasn't just a bad guy
in that it was so nuanced.
And I think we really wanted to bring out
the nuance in our experience.
I think that's what Peter's writing does so well.
I think that's what the Crown does has
always done so well, is it really shows
the kind of, yeah, the human experience behind
these, like figurehead, these icons who we
think we know.
And it shows them in all their flaws
and all their glory and everything
they're thinking and feeling. And I think in a way
that the viewers can then
kind of relate and empathise with them.
I mean, you've used the word icon a few
times already. I mean, I imagine there were
really great pressures about going into this
role, given that people have such vivid
memories. I mean, living memories of
this, of the people's princess, of somebody
that was beloved.
Yeah, it was it was quite overwhelming and
daunting to begin with.
But really, when I got the scripts in front
of me and I kind of realised that with this
is Peter Morgan's version of
events, this is a fictional
version. I'm playing a character
I kind of get it was like somebody gave me a
lot more freedom, a lot more confidence to
to bring to make our Diana,
you know, my interpretation.
And I guess in a similar vein,
I mean, Josh you did this wonderful
job in season three of sort of
humanising this person that has often been
quite divisive throughout history.
I was surprised by people's
surprise at season three about
being, you know, Charles being sympathetic,
I think people assume that he was like
some bad boy villain from the off.
And obviously he's a boy that's lost.
He's like got huge, major issues.
One being that is, he has to wait
for his mother to die, for his life to take
meaning.
He lives in a permanent state of purgatory.
He's not allowed to marry the woman he loves.
And so with all those things, hopefully
you would hope that...
I think he did pretty well.
He's done alright.
There were real moments coming up of genuine
tenderness and love.
And I hope
that people will be surprised and feel like
they gave it a really proper good shot.