As we fast approach the return of The Crown for its sixth and final season, the Netflix show's director has spoken out about what we can expect when it comes to how the end of Princess Diana's life is portrayed.
The first half of the season is set to cover the dramatic lead up to Diana's death, and the man who will direct the episodes that cover these moments – Christian Schwochow – has opened up about what we will and won't be seeing.
He has explained that even though footage was filmed of Diana (Elizabeth Debicki), in the Paris morgue following her death, it was never intended for these shots to be included in the final edit.
"We did film Diana, but very respectfully — not in a big close-up,” he explained. This was important in enabling Dominic West to best perform his scenes as Prince Charles. So while earlier reports have confirmed that we won't see the tragic crash that killed the Princess, we now know the whole storyline will be handled very gently.
She shared a text that ‘says it all’.
“It was very, very clear to us that we don't want to see her body,” he told Deadline. "I actually think that it was not a discussion. Not even in the first version of the cut we would ever see her body."
"Elizabeth was there to see Dominic's performance in the hospital, so she knows exactly how raw he was," he explained, adding the importance of creating space for actors to find the emotion that inevitably comes with these stories, especially as they're playing complex characters like the royals.
"I always encourage the actors to go deeper into the emotion," Christian said. "Even though we haven't usually seen the Queen and the royals showing emotion, there's another persona when they're not within public view."
The director also discussed the way in which Princess Diana's death is revealed to key characters in The Crown, including the Queen, Philip and Charles as well as her sons William and Harry. According to Deadline, we don't hear the conversations and the audio for these scenes is silent.
“We don’t have to see and hear that three or four times,” Christian explained. “We try to give all the characters their private space with their grief and sadness to not exploit these emotions too much.”
The TV show also used real CCTV footage of Princess Diana and her lover Dodi from The Ritz hotel on the night of her death.
“We could make our own observations about the physicality between Dodi and Diana,” Christian explained. “We couldn’t hear anything, but we could see how they touched, how they laughed. And even though we knew she had been crying in the restaurant, we could really observe and see how much they felt at ease and how comfortable she was.”
We can also expect to see Diana to reappear in conversations with the Queen (Imelda Staunton) and Prince Charles after her death in The Crown's sixth season.
"Let's call Diana not a ghost," Christian said. "It's like a conversation that Charles would probably love to have in that moment, and the same with the Queen."
The famous St Andrews University fashion show is being depicted on screen.
He also opened up about what it was like to film these emotional scenes shortly after the Queen's death in real life last year. “We all felt the conscious memory of people,” he said.
"So many moments of sadness and grief. I don’t know how many times I had to cry behind my monitors because it’s so incredibly intense to recreate these moments. Not only to recreate them, but to create our truth, which is hopefully as truthful as you can get in fiction.”
Tissues at the ready, everyone.
The Crown season six part one airs on Netflix on 16 November.
