Kerry Parnell: Prince Charles gets sexy glow-up in The Crown’s season five
Prince Charles must be punching the air in jubilation with his celebrity glow-up after actor Dominic West was cast to play him in season five of The Crown, Kerry Parnell writes.
Opinion
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Is it wrong to fancy Prince Charles? Because that’s the uncomfortable position The Crown has put me in, by casting Dominic West as the Prince of Wales in season five.
This week Netflix has just released a first picture of The Affair actor in character and double-breasted suit and crinkle-cut aristo hair notwithstanding, dirty Dominic is still very much in evidence. I’m experiencing conflicting emotions.
Mind you, imagine how happy Prince Charles is, he must be punching the air in jubilation with his celebrity glow-up.
Everyone has done the “who would play you in a Hollywood film of your life” game and there are not
many men who would be crestfallen if the answer was Dominic West.
There’s some good news to put the wind up his kilt on his Scottish break. Let’s face it, the Balmoral breakfast buffet bantz was always going to be awkward with Prince Andrew and Fergie. “So … what have you been up to lately?”
Meanwhile, The Crown is continuing to sex up the royals with its kind casting – Matt Smith and Tobias Menzies as Prince Philip, Gillian Anderson as Margaret Thatcher and we’re still thinking about Greg Wise’s Mountbatten.
Prince Charles can’t have liked the Josh O’Connor version of himself, however accurate, as it was much too weighted on the weasel-ometer, but Dominic is a different beast entirely.
After all, if he could make us still like The Wire’s Detective Jimmy McNulty by the end of the show, despite the booze, lovers and lies, he could – possibly – convince us to root (steady, punsters) for Charles.
Dominic as Charles is one thing, but The Crown has also cast Jonny Lee Miller as British prime minister John Major. What the? If you needed any more confirmation you’ve grown old, it’s Trainspotting’s Sick Boy becoming the Grey Man of British politics.
If only he’d held on a bit he could have played Tony Blair, who came to power in 1997, although Michael Sheen might have done a threefer deal with Peter Morgan, as he’s aced that role twice already in The Deal and The Queen.
Miller and West are following a grand Hollywood tradition of celebrity upgrades, where ridiculously-attractive stars portray real people.
Think Eric Bana, Damian Lewis, Jonathan Rhys Meyer and Richard Burton as Henry VIII, Hugh Jackman as P.T. Barnum – who in real life, looked uncannily like Jim Broadbent – or Doris Day as Calamity Jane.
At least Deadwood’s Robin Weigert looked a bit more realistic. Even the von Trapps got a movie makeover, with the real Maria and whistle-botherer Captain nothing like Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer and the same for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, who were as far as you can get from the divine duo Paul Newman and Robert Redford. The real Butch looked like a cross-eyed Todd from Breaking Bad. (Jesse Plemons speed dials his agent.)
Or more recently, take Taron Egerton as Elton John in Rocketman. Originally Tom Hardy was going to play Reg Dwight – seriously - but he was dropped, not because he’s absurdly handsome, but because he can’t sing.
“When I saw Taron, I was not looking at him — I was looking at me,” the superstar said. As he booked his Specsavers appointment.
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