The Crown star Emma Corrin, as Diana, backs Prince Harry’s choice to put love and marriage first
The star who is being transformed into Diana in the new season The Crown, has revealed why she’s backing Prince Harry and Meghan’s call to leave the UK.
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When unknown British actress, Emma Corrin, stepped into an exact replica of Princess Diana’s wedding dress, an audible gasp was heard from cast and crew on the set of The Crown – and the 24 year old won’t forget the moment any time soon.
“Trying on the dress for the first time was one of the most insane moments of my life,” she tells The BINGE Guide.
“The Emmanuels [designers] gave us the original designs. It took about 15 people to get me into the dress, and then when the crew were ready, we opened the doors and I was standing there. Everyone went silent. And they remained silent the entire time we were shooting. It was this huge weight of respect,” she says. “Everyone in the room felt it.”
The Crown’s long-awaited season four spans the 70s to the 90s, and also introduces Gillian Anderson as another late, yet larger-than-life character, former UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.
While both roles were challenging for the respective actors, Corrin — taking on one of the world’s most famous and revered icons, ‘the people’s princess’ no less, — found it an impossibly daunting prospect.
“It was strange representing someone who means so much to so many people,” Corrin says.
“I was about three years old when she died, which means that I don’t have any living memory of her being alive. And in terms of research, I watched the Netflix documentary, Diana: In Her Own Words, and that helped me get a sense of the voice, of the way she tilted her head.” She giggles: “actually, my neck was beginning to get really lopsided on one side. I think that [mannerism] was such a signature thing for her.”
What she does share with Diana is a passion for fashion.
“Oh my God, I loved the costumes,” she smiles. “I really wanted to keep the one I wear to the funeral of [Major] Hugh Lindsay [in 1988]. It’s this incredible black velvet skirt suit. But more so, I was really fascinated by portraying younger Diana when she wasn’t really a styler yet, which was funny.”
Watching Corrin’s Diana effect in person certainly cements the tale of her set debut.
It’s a chilly night outside London’s Lyceum Theatre, where Corrin and Josh O’Connor (Prince Charles) are to attend a recreation of 1984’s Royal Variety Performance.
The cheering from the crowd of extras and onlookers is deafening, rising to a crescendo once they glimpse the royal couple entering the theatre.
And it’s no wonder – watching Corrin step out of the limousine, the likeness is unmistakeable, almost eerie.
Yet it almost didn’t happen.
“Talk about a fairy tale!” Corrin says, nodding. “I went in to read opposite the actors auditioning for the role of Camilla [Parker Bowles]. They just needed someone to help out so it was a non-pressure situation and an opportunity to meet [The Crown creator] Peter Morgan. I remember saying to a friend, ‘Even if I don’t get a part, it was probably the best hour of my life.’”
Morgan agrees: “It was a proper Star is Born story,” he explains. “I was only interested in looking at the actors auditioning for Camilla Parker Bowles and the cameras were on the Camillas. And I remember sitting in the room and looking over [at Emma] and going, ‘it’s Diana!’”
The actual Lady Diana Spencer, then a part-time nursery school teacher, was wholly unprepared for her royal debut.
In a case of life imitating art, Corrin is still not sure she's ready for fame: “I don’t know!” she laughs, “I guess I’ll find out.”
Eight months after the set visit, we check in again via Zoom, with Corrin sharing her humble backstory.
Beginning her career as a model, her first substantial role came in drama series, Pennyworth last year.
The eldest of three children she was born in Kent to a businessman father and South African mother, who is a leading speech and language specialist.
“My mum looked a lot like Diana when she was younger,” she reveals.
“Actually, the day Diana died, my mum got on the Tube [in London] and people fainted because they thought that she was her. Even at school, there was a running joke that my mum was Diana. So when I got the part, I had a weird connection to her.”
Diana’s story is, of course, ultimately one of tragedy, which includes an eating disorder, an unhappy marriage, and of course, an untimely premature death.
She was also considered a rebel by royal standards, so what does Corrin think Diana would make of her son Prince Harry’s decision to put love and marriage ahead of The Firm?
“I think she would have been very proud of him. I think the royal family is a very interesting and antiquated institution. I think society has helped modernise the rules. You can’t not put love and marriage ahead of other people and I think Diana headed that change,” she says.
“I think she really would have understood and been sympathetic of what Harry experienced.”
Diana’s struggles with bulimia is tackled rather graphically during the season.
“We had to portray her in a very full way and I don’t think we could have just alluded to it,” Corrin insists, defending the scenes.
“She was very vocal about it and I couldn’t have portrayed her honestly if it hadn’t been shown properly. At that time, her life gets out of control and it was her way of taking back control. It was like her secret friend.”
Diana was famously an advocate for mental health and many humanitarian issues, with many citing her as single-handedly changing attitudes towards AIDS patients.
In 1987, she was photographed shaking the hand of a man with AID, at a time when fear of the disease was so widespread, people were terrified to touch sufferers.
Fast forward and today’s groundswell for racial, social and sexual equality and justice, it seems inevitable that had Princess Diana lived, she would have been a leading light for LGBTQ rights, #timesup and Black Lives Matter.
“Diana was ahead of her time,” Corrin concurs, “in the fact that she was very vocal about mental health, and I think she would have really excelled in today’s society. She would have been an incredible spokesman for women and all the movements taking place especially now when so much care and sensitivity is needed. That’s what people recognised in her.”
The princess famously endured a love-hate relationship with the paparazzi, a dynamic which would ultimately be the death of her.
Does Corrin feel her demise made a martyr of her?
“Oh God, I think in some ways, yes. I think it certainly solidified her as an icon, though I really struggle with the word ‘icon,’ because I think it removes any kind of humanity.”
Corrin adds, thoughtfully: “If I’ve learned anything from this story that we’re telling, it’s that you have to be so careful when creating an ideal for yourself. She had dreams of what she thought her life would be like with Charles. Sadly, it was far from the reality.”
* The Crown s4, streaming Sunday, November 15 on Netflix.
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