The Crown S5 cast promise beautiful Charles scene, unravelling Queen – and heartbreak

It has been a TV obsession since it first hit screens in 2016 and with the fifth season of hugely successful – and often controversial – Netflix show The Crown arriving, it seems only right to catch up with the stars who will be playing our favourite royals.

In this series, which covers 1991 to 1997, the national treasure that is Imelda Staunton takes over from Olivia Colman as Queen Elizabeth II, while Dominic West steps into the role of Prince Charles that was previously played by Josh O’Connor and Elizabeth Debicki replaces Emma Corrin as Princess Diana.

When we catch up with the cast ahead of the launch, 53-year-old Dominic tells us how intimidated he was by co-star Elizabeth and describes their first day at work as “the worst day of my life”.

“I was terrified,” he admits. “I remember the first camera test we did, in July, it was the worst day of my life. She came in looking just like Princess Di and sounding just like Princess Di, and I walked in dressed up as Charles. I don’t look anything like him and I don’t really sound anything like him either.

"I don’t move like him. I’ve got little legs like him but other than that, that’s it. So I was standing there waiting for my test, watching the screen where Elizabeth was walking down a corridor and I went, ‘Oh my God, it’s amazing, it’s uncanny.’

“It was so bad. I just thought I could hear the crew going, ‘Oh, he’s been slightly miscast, hasn’t he? They got Diana right but I’m not sure about him [laughs].’”

Luckily for the star of The Wire, Elizabeth, 32, didn’t share his dim view. She says, “The thing about Dom is he’s so talented, as annoying as it is to admit that. He’s so good. And I’ve always actually been a big fan of his.

"I don’t think I’ve ever told him that! I can’t, as he’ll get a huge head! He’s amazing as Charles. He really is amazing and he cares so deeply about the role; that was evident from the very beginning.”

Guardians Of The Galaxy star Elizabeth describes Dominic’s portrayal of the Prince of Wales – now our King – as “beautiful”, saying, “I knew when I was working opposite him that what he was doing was brilliant, and beautiful, and so human.

"I find him really moving in this role. To work with him as an actor is so much fun. He’s very generous, he’s very funny, he makes me laugh a lot and he just goes for it.”

Season five finds Charles and Diana in a very dark place as they accept their marriage is over and Charles wrestles with the turmoil of being madly in love with someone (Camilla Parker Bowles) he thinks he will never be allowed to marry.

Imelda said the problems the Queen’s children are facing at this stage in the story made playing her easier and “having a lot of things to tackle” means this series has ore to offer viewers.

The 66-year-old says, “I think this series is great for unravelling and she has many issues to deal with, which makes for very good writing and, hopefully, very good viewing. It’s certainly good to play people with problems and difficulties, it’s much easier to perform that. I think this series has a lot to offer, insofar as there are a lot of things to tackle rather than the Queen just going about her duties.”

Elizabeth says of series five, “It begins with Charles and Diana going on a vacation which was dubbed, for the media’s consumption, a ‘second honeymoon’. It was an attempt to create a reunification of Diana and Charles and present a cohesive family unit.”

But as history records, it didn’t work out that way – and if anything, it highlighted how badly their relationship had broken down by this point. “To simplify it, it’s the story of the disintegration and the inevitable breakdown of their marriage into divorce,” says Elizabeth.

Dominic tells us that while their holiday was “a PR exercise” and “an attempt to show that the marriage was strong and that the family – Charles, Diana and the two sons – were a strong unit”, he doesn’t believe that things were all bad within the family at that time.

He says, “I think they were both good parents and conscientious parents. I know he [Charles] read bedtime stories to them [William and Harry] every night on that holiday. But for their marriage, it was an attempt to paper over cracks that couldn’t be papered over.

“Certainly by the time of that ‘second honeymoon’, their marriage was dead. She had had several affairs and he’d obviously had this one deep passion of his life that he’s now been free to pursue. So the marriage was over but they were there for their children.”

Despite playing someone in the depths of despair, Dominic is the first to admit he very much enjoyed filming the scenes aboard a luxury yacht in Spain.

Talking about his time abroad, he said, “It was fantastic, amazing! It was pretty near the beginning of my time on The Crown and I thought, ‘If this is what it’s like, then please can we do more than two seasons?!’ We were in Majorca for a week, which was bliss, and we were on the Aristotle Onassis yacht, which was the first super-yacht…

"I can’t pretend it was difficult. It was sheer, sheer joy, I loved it.”

However, Dominic is the first to admit he was “very apprehensive” about playing a man who, at the time, was “in the prime of his life but at the depths of his tragedy”.

And adding to his nerves was the fact that his real-life son, 14-year-old Senan, took on his first acting role to play Prince William. Dominic says, “He’s never acted before, not even a school play because Covid stopped all that, so I didn’t know whether he could do it.”

But given his physical appearance and his age, it became clear he was made for the part. Dominic explains, “He’s blue-eyed and blond, and exactly the right age, so when they were looking for William I said to him, ‘Do you want to have a go?’ and he said yes.

They did a nationwide search but he did really well in the audition and they cast him.”

To say he’s proud of his son’s performance is an understatement and the actor describes him as “wonderful”. Dominic says, “I watched the first scene he did, which was quite a sad scene that Peter [Morgan] had written of William on the phone to his mum from boarding school, and it was so moving. I couldn’t watch it.

"He was wonderful – just so totally real and innocent. It was amazing seeing someone who has never acted before suddenly on camera.”

Elizabeth was just as impressed by Senan’s debut, saying the bond he and Dominic shared moved her to tears. She says, “That broke me, when I saw them together for the first time. He was so proud of him, you know? It just kills me! Senan is just a dream.”

In fact, the Australian actress says they were particularly thrilled to have the youngster on board because it took the focus off the adults! She says, “We were so lucky to have him. I remember the first time I saw Dom watching Senan on the monitor, and he was so proud of him… I said to him, ‘It’s so good that Senan’s here because he’s the star of The Crown. The pressure is off us!’ He’s amazing.”

In terms of his relationship with his on-screen mother, Dominic says he is a huge fan of Imelda but he felt a definite chill when they filmed scenes together.

He tells us, “I’ve done a couple of films with Imelda before and I adore her, and I think she’s the best around. But similarly, she wasn’t giving Charles much love either. She’s the warmest person in the world but, my God, when she acts cold, she’s ice-cold.

"We have a couple of scenes which are hopefully heartbreaking – a 50-year-old man reduced to being a little boy again, trying to get the love of his mother.”

She may have been steely on the outside but the Cranford actress admits she found playing Queen Elizabeth II a “huge challenge”.

However, she did form an amazing bond with Jonny Lee Miller, who plays Prime Minister John Major. She says, “I adored working with Jonny. We were both very aware that we had all the grown-up scenes to do. We didn’t know each other before and I think we were both quite frightened. We both did our very best.”

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