HOLLYWOOD INSIDER

Cast of ‘The Crown’ talk about their experiences filming about the royal family

Los Angeles — We were on the set of British screenwriter-filmmaker Peter Morgan’s much-talked-about “The Crown” in London early March.

Little did we know it was going to be one of our last trips this year, thanks to the pandemic, but what a trip: Seeing the whole cast and watching them film some scenes was truly breathtaking. 

Just recently, we talked to some of them via Zoom as they tell us more about their experiences portraying the royal family, what they have learned about them and from this lockdown.

Below are excerpts of our conversations with the cast that includes Emma Corrin (Princess Diana), Josh O’Connor (Prince Charles), Olivia Colman (Queen Elizabeth II), Tobias Menzies (Prince Philip), Helena Bonham Carter (Princess Margaret), Erin Doherty (Princess Anne), Emerald Fennell (Camilla Shand Parker Bowles) and Gillian Anderson (Margaret Thatcher).

Emma Corrin (Princess Diana)

Can you talk about how you felt this character fitted in all of the iconology that we have all had of Diana?

I had a really interesting relationship with the research process because I was incredibly daunted, I guess and quite overwhelmed at the beginning. I sat down and felt I had to do a lot of research and I read a lot of biographies. So, I watched a lot of documentaries but, as you say, I was very frustrated with the iconology of it all because I feel like when someone becomes an icon, it immediately means you cannot know them because they become a representative of themselves.

I really struggled to get any kind of sense of who she was, which is really all I needed to know and, yeah, it's a kind of a lot of noise, a lot of tabloid noise around her.

I felt like it didn't really help me, and then it all changed when I got the script. I realized this is Peter's story. This is our interpretation; this is my interpretation of Diana and it gave me such a freedom as an actor to suddenly start exploring it in a way that would be helpful to me.

After walking in the shoes of Diana and trying on her clothes and even the wedding gown, talk about how you feel about doing this project?

It is incredible. It's been very surreal at times because that scene where I wore her dress and we were filming that. When we were filming that scene everyone went quiet because it was like, it was a bit of a strange reverence around this moment and it really did feel like, 'wow, this is her.' Because simultaneously this is our interpretation but they are real people and especially Diana was such an icon that you can't really remove. It made me understand her more. I have an appreciation of what she went through on some level.

After we saw you in London, the world started to change. How have you coped with the lockdown and how are you taking care of your mental well-being?

It was particularly strange with the cast of “The Crown” because we went from one day filming to being in lockdown the next. So actually, to have 3 months where I didn't do much was, I spent a lot of that time rebuilding myself because we filmed for a long time and it was incredibly challenging as much as it was the best experience ever. 

I read a lot which I never really had a chance to do when working. I had such a growing list of films I really wanted to watch and I have a subscription to Movie which I love, which obviously has so many incredible independent films and incredible auteurs and I just I hadn't ever had a chance to properly start going through my list.

So, I read and not so much about my craft I suppose in these months and made me think about like storytelling and how I really love the way that we tell stories through film and the different ways it can be done. I've optioned the rights to a story that I found last year and so I'm working on slowly developing that, which is exciting. I feel like coronavirus made us reach out to parts of ourselves that perhaps we never really would have had the chance to recognize or properly pay attention to.

What do you think Diana would make of her son Harry’s rebellious streak and putting love and marriage ahead of duty?

From what I've learned, she would have been very proud of him. The Royal Family is a very interesting institution. It's quite antiquated in the sense that it doesn't clarify those things and society has modernized inevitably that cause attention within that. It was just naturally what was going to happen. People really would have understood and been sympathetic of what Harry experienced.

If Diana was around today, what would you ask her?

I don't really have any specific questions for her but what I'd love to do is sit down and have dinner with her or go to the cinema with her or go for a walk with her and see and understand her view on the world.

Josh O’Connor (Prince Charles)

What are the challenges of portraying somebody alive and famous and what did you discover about Charles?

It’s strange to think that he’s a real person because in many ways I don’t feel, I don’t associate the real Prince Charles and my character, in part because I only ever set out to create a character. 

What I thought was so successful about Series One and Two of “The Crown” was that Claire Foy and Matt Smith created totally unique characters that felt like the Queen, felt like Philip, but had their own nuances and their own physicality. And I felt really excited about doing the same with Charles.  And so yeah, it feels kind of strange that exists in real life almost, if that makes sense.

Did this series change anything for you? Were you surprised about who Charles really is and what were your thoughts before and after this series?

It’s very hard to know what the perception was, because there’s so many books, so many articles, to wade through, about the Charles and Diana love story. It’s very hard to get one definitive impression of what actually happened, which is perfect in some ways, because it means that we can create our own fiction and make decisions for ourselves. 

And one of the things that I think I was really interested in, was I decided very early on that he can’t have just loved Camilla and not Diana. I think he did love Diana, and he loved her in different ways and at different times.  I think if we go to when he first meets her, I think he’s totally charmed by her and in love with her innocence, with her naivete. 

Then I think he falls in love in Australia — Episode Six — I think he falls in love with her as a woman, as this powerful, beautiful force that she becomes. And then it’s like any marriage, the tragedy, it can never be one sided. Marriages end from both sides and I think it’s heartbreaking to see it play out.  But I always thought that we have to have some sympathy for him, and I was helped out with Season Three where that’s all I had to do, is make you all feel sorry for me.

Why is Prince Charles getting gloomier? We all had difficult childhoods but he had so much going for him. Don’t you feel sometimes he got a bit self-pitying?

Totally, I completely agree. There are moments where, let’s face it, throughout Season Four, every time he does get moan-y in front of the Queen, he’s told to shut up and get on with it. So, I think it’s not just us that feels that, the Queen is us in those moments. 

It’s always the complexity about the royal family as individuals. We are confronted with people who seemingly have everything. And yet because of that, have very little, they have nothing. And it’s something really beautiful actually that Margaret Thatcher says in Series Four, where she says, it’s something like with power, you have everything. And me, without power, I am nothing. And I love this concept, I think that Charles seems like he has everything, but really, he has no affection from his mother, in our world. He has his mother, he has his father, difficulties with his father. And I think it can seem from the outside that Diana is glorious, and she is, and that’s why it’s inexplicable, you can’t explain why he just doesn’t love her really in the end. There are moments of love as I was saying.

Olivia Colman (Queen Elizabeth)

You have won a Golden Globe two years running. Where are you now at in this journey? Are you looking forward for the Queen to sort of disappear?

I've become quite a hermit. I don't go out, so, I'm not entirely sure what changes have taken place. I love going to work because it's a safe environment. I'm alarmed to no end, by, when I have gone out, people take photographs without asking. Which is, I think, unspeakably rude. It's a bit like you're an interesting slug or, "What type of tree is that?" Take a photo without asking, so that is why I've withdrawn quite a lot. I stay at home. But I'm very happy. I like being at home. I love my family.

Gillian Anderson (Margaret Thatcher)

I love the poem you read to the Queen (Olivia Colman) where you said something like “if you haven’t made enemies, you haven’t done anything.” What are your thoughts on that?

What I am trying to think, what aspects of the poem that I did respond to that felt like it resonated in my life. I mean, she was really talking about action and that if you don't take risks, to take actions that you really are not succeeding and that in the process of taking action sometimes the risk is that you will make enemies.

I can see that to a degree that that can be true. It's not necessarily the experience that I've had in my life but I do like that poem and I like that scene. That was a fun poem to throw at Olivia Colman.

2020’s been a weird year. How have you coped with this and what are you doing to look after your mental health in these times?

I have been incredibly fortunate during this period of time to have some outdoor space. So, when we were in lockdown and the weather was good, it made a huge difference on all of our sanity, especially with two young boys whose favorite thing is to be outside. That did make a difference, that definitely helped.

But I know that there’s a lot of people out there who have really struggled and we’re wondering what is going to happen as the weather changes and we’re all stuck indoors not able to go outside even if we can and even if we want to. So, it’s a very troubling time.

When Margaret Thatcher meets the Queen, she says she doesn’t like to work with women because she finds them too emotional. What has been your experience working with women?

To be honest, it’s been mixed. I’ve had mixed experience, which I wouldn’t expect because I feel like I am such a woman’s woman. I love women. I celebrate women. I’m very positive about women. I don’t resent women’s success, etc.

But I’ve had experience and it’s in part because women have very often had to battle so hard for the roles that they are in, that sometimes, my experience is that they create a persona almost — to be able to deal with the amount of kickback or reaction, almost like a toughness that’s not necessarily a part of their natural self — in order to deal with not being listened to, whatever the things are that they felt that they had to protect themselves against.

And so, I have a lot of compassion for that but at the same time it’s an unfortunate dynamic that hopefully over time as more women get to have more opportunities, specifically in high places, that there’ll be less of a need for that.

Peter Morgan (creator-writer)

The Queen is getting older in this series. What is it like writing her?

There was a moment where I suddenly realized that what we were writing, with Thatcher and the Queen, sort of sometimes very challenging relationship, was that you were talking about two menopausal women.

It had never really occurred to me and that we had these two extraordinary icons in the midst of hormonal and chemical turmoil.

I don't think I imagined what that would be like, but there was a time, where I suddenly thought, "Oh, gosh." I get very moved when I see Olivia's face after Claire (Foy’s) face. And I will be very moved when I see Imelda (Staunton’s) face after Olivia's face. And there was one particular scene where the Queen said it must be difficult getting old? When she talked about Mountbatten.

I find the business of us all getting older, now that I'm north of 50, and I find it moving. When you're young, you sort of think it's never going to happen. And when it suddenly becomes part of you and bits don't work quite as well as they used to, I have enormous compassion. And I'm moved by the business of getting older. And so, when I see the Queen looking older than she was in season one and two, I'm moved by that. Because it's a journey I'm on.

Helena Bonham Carter (Princess Margaret)

Who have you had interactions with the royal family?

The Queen. I got a medal. I went for a sleepover. They actually call them sleepovers. I think she has about 10 of them a year to meet people, her people and people so it was a really odd group of people. 

It was when I was with Tim (Burton) and it's about 6 years ago and we went, and Daniel Craig was there with Rachel (Weisz). It was a really odd group.

Not that they were odd, they were the other people in the arts and the Brazilian Ambassador. I can't remember now. It was about 10 of us and then we all slept over in Windsor and I was in the Prince Charles Suite. 

It was a thrill and it did feel like you were in “The Crown.” I remember the silence and there was this clock going tick tock tick tock. As you walked in, there was a lady standing by the door and she just carried on standing there and then we went to the toilet, looked at the ladies and then we came out and all our bags had been unpacked automatically. Then I said, "are you all right," She said, "yes, no, I'll just be remaining here." I said, "we're really fine" and she said, "we just want to know, do you want your bath to be drawn? And tea. Will you be wanting tea in the morning?" I said yeah, that will be fine. It was amazing.

It was really surreal, and the Queen was wearing a tiara. I sat next to the Duke of Edinburgh. He was very mischievous, and they went on a full tour of Windsor.

Very proud they were, because it had burnt down and so this was the restoration and then they have an amazing library there, which is basically the history of England and objects.

There's a feeling that they feel they're just borrowers. It's not theirs.  They’re just curators in a way.

Tobias Menzies (Philip)

You don’t watch a lot of TV but you are on TV. How is that?

My mom, she thought it was not a good thing to be doing as a young kid, so we were told to go climb pine trees and stuff, which I think is good to hear. So yeah, it was definitely my mom’s call.

How long has it been since you climbed a tree?

It’s actually been two years since I climbed a tree, so it’s not too bad. We were filming somewhere; it was actually on “The Crown” and it was a day off and I had gone for a walk and then there was a tree and I climbed up it.

What surprised you about the royal family while doing the series?

I had one actually that is a small detail, but I didn’t know that Charles had dated Diana’s sister, prior to getting together with Diana. It went different directions; I don’t know what happened. So yeah, you get to meet Diana through her sister, through him visiting the sister and there is this girl wandering through. And I thought it was this interesting kind of tidbit.

He seemed very paternal especially with Princess Diana. He takes her hunting and stuff like that. It’s like wow, there is a little essence of him.

Yeah. I mean there’s definitely people that he warms to strongly. And an example, I think Diana in a similar vein, he just takes an instant liking to her. I think, he also thinks she’s beautiful. I think he is not immune to her charms.

But he’s also, we see him be still a difficult father for Charles, so that doesn’t stop. So, I mean, I hope with Philip, he seems to me, the more I read about him, he seems like a contradictory person.  So, there are many versions of him being difficult and hard to get close to and not very warm and other people who spoke very highly of him, so trying to get that mixture, that combination within him, seemed like the interesting way to go. And yes, I guess he is maybe mellowing a bit with the older age.

Erin Doherty (Princess Anne)

Prince Charles confided a lot to Princess Anne. How much did you understand that?

I found it, in Peter Morgan’s version of these people, I think it’s really difficult to know those aspects of people’s lives, because you say they are so, especially this family, everything that is personal is behind closed doors.

I don’t think that I would have ever found out those things without Peter leaning towards them. But also, when you rock up on set and you explore it, like a lot of it is done through whoever is directing the episode, but me and Josh (O’Connor) just deciding, we really wanted them to have that kind of camaraderie.  And it always feels really human, but it also feels like there is such a need for it because they have such difficult relationships with their parents in terms of what they can communicate to them, so they become each other’s shoulder to lean on and soundboard for these things.  So, it just fell into place with me and Josh. It felt really natural.

Emerald Fennell (Camilla Shand Parker Bowles)

What surprised you about Camilla?

I was really surprised that Camilla’s incredibly funny and straightforward. And I think she’s quite an unusual person for her time, actually for any time. And what is interesting about her is that she’s incredibly private, which is very interesting considering the role she has now.

But it had a lot of bearing on why there was very little research about her. And so that was a very interesting thing to think of, actually, what a very private woman who was used to having a lot of freedom, what that must feel like to them to start a relationship with someone who is arguably the most famous person in the world. And that, of course, is a kind of modern problem in lots of ways, so that was really surprising. — LA, GMA News