‘The Crown’ filmed Princess Diana’s death with extreme sensitivity: No ‘dead body’ shown
The sixth and final season of “The Crown” hasn’t premiered yet, but there’s already been controversy about how it will depict the death of Princess Diana.
Christian Schwochow, who directed the upcoming episodes depicting her final moments, told Deadline that he handled it with extreme sensitivity.
“We did film Diana, but very respectfully — not in a big close-up,” he said.
“This enabled Dominic West to perform his scenes as her former husband Prince Charles at the hospital…It was very, very clear to us that we don’t want to see her dead body. I actually think that it was not a discussion. Not even in the first version of the cut we would ever see her body.”
Season 6 will cover events from 1997 through 2005, including Princess Diana’s death in a 1997 car crash in Paris at age 36. As creator Peter Morgan has previously stated, “The Crown” will not cover the era of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.
Netflix’s synopsis of the final season reads: “A relationship blossoms between Princess Diana and Dodi Fayed before a fateful car journey has devastating consequences. Prince William tries to integrate back into life at Eton in the wake of his mother’s death as the monarchy has to ride the wave of public opinion. As she reaches her Golden Jubilee, the Queen reflects on the future of the monarchy with the marriage of Charles and Camilla and the beginnings of a new Royal fairytale in William and Kate.”
Elizabeth Debicki will reprise her role as Princess Diana alongside Dominic West as Prince Charles, while Imelda Staunton will reprise her role as Queen Elizabeth II.
Salim Daw will return as Mohamed Al Fayed, and Khalid Abdalla will return as Dodi Fayed.
Rufus Kampa will make his debut as a young Prince William, and Fflyn Edwards will make his debut on the show as a young Prince Harry.
Newcomers Ed McVey, 23, and Meg Bellamy, 19, will play Prince William and Kate when they’re university-aged, and Luther Ford will play Prince Harry when he’s a teen.
This season will include “so many moments of sadness and grief,” Schwochow told the outlet.
“I don’t know how many times I had to cry behind my monitors because it’s so incredibly intense to re-create these moments. Not only to re-create them, but to create our truth, which is hopefully as truthful as you can get in fiction.”
In the show, when Charles, William, and Harry get the news about Diana’s death, the conversation is reportedly silent, with the viewer not hearing the dialogue.
“We try to give all the characters their private space with their grief and sadness to not exploit these emotions too much,” Schwochow said.
The production watched CCTV footage from the Ritz hotel in Paris the night of the fatal car crash, where Diana and her then-boyfriend, Dodi, had dined out that night.
“We could make our own observations about the physicality between Dodi and Diana,” Schwochow said. “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.”
It’s been reported that Diana’s ghost will be in Season 6, but he said, “Let’s call Diana not a ghost. It’s like a conversation that Charles would probably love to have in that moment, and the same with the Queen.”
Season 6 of “The Crown” will premiere in two parts: Part 1 comes out on Netflix Nov. 16, and Part 2 will premiere on Dec. 14.
