The actor playing Prince Charles in The Crown opens up about the role

The young star playing Prince Charles had more than a few challenges when preparing to play the austere royal.

Josh O’Connor, tipped to be the star of The Crown’s third season, has admitted portraying Prince Charles was no easy feat.

Speaking toES Magazine ahead of the highly-anticipated season premiere on November 17, the 29-year-old actor said it was “impossible” to replicate the famously austere royal because “none of us know who he is”.

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While we’ve previously seen Prince Charles portrayed on The Crown by young actors Billy Jenkins and Julian Baring, O’Connor’s portrayal will delve into the complexities of Charles’ relationship with his mother, The Queen, and the beginnings of his tumultuous romantic life.

“I think the first thing I learned is that it’s totally impossible to replicate the real man,” O’Connor said. “I don’t know who he is, none of us do.”

He added that he “really loves” Prince Charles, revealing that before filming, he managed to get his “tortoise-like” walk “down to a T”.

The actor playing Prince Charles says he perfected the royal’s signature gait. Picture: Getty.

First appearing in the fifth episode of the season, the Netflix hit will delve into not only Charles’ life as a young royal, but his burgeoning relationship with Camilla Shand.

While foreshadowing his scandal-ridden romantic life in the years to come, the season reportedly offers an empathetic and multilayered portrayal of the seemingly misunderstood royal.

Prince Charles and Princess Diana before the fairytale fell apart. Picture: Camera Press London.

O’Connor is known for playing Johnny Saxby in the 2017 film God’s Own Country, directed by Francis Lee, for which he won a British Independent Film Award for Best Actor.

He is also known from ITV TV series The Durrells, in which he played Lawrence Durrell and the BBC miniseries of Les Miserables, as Marius Pontmercy.

O’Connor admits his strong resemblance to a young Prince of Wales certainly helped him bag the part.

“I did think immediately,” he said, gesturing to his ears during the interview with ES Magazine. “Who’s going to play Charles? I don’t know anyone my age who’s got these. They’re not huge, but they stick out.”

Speaking further on preparing for the role with Wales Online, O’Connor said perfecting the nuances of the Queen’s eldest and heir to the throne with little reference point wasn’t his only challenge.

O’Connor was also tasked with learning Welsh, a task he admitted was daunting.

“A line like ‘y braint mwyaf yw cael’, it doesn’t sound the way it looks – so we’d write it down phonetically (and) I just learnt the sounds and I knew what I was saying in a rough form,” O’Connor explained.

“And then (the Welsh coach) would pick out certain words, like ‘awyrgylch’, which is one of the hardest words to say. It was a challenge but having learnt the Welsh, then I had to say it as Charles. It was a challenge but it was great.”

O’Connor told the publication he became slightly too good at reading his Welsh back, with his coach asking him to “pull back” to keep in character.

“It was quite nice, Mirain would say bring it back a little bit … I was getting too good!”

Emma Corrin, who plays Princess Diana, filming scenes with O’Connor. Picture: Enrico Borra / Splash News

Of working with Oscar winner Olivia Colman, who is taking over from Claire Foy as the Queen, O’Connor described the experience as nothing short of “epic”.

“I remember looking over and being like: ‘Holy sh**! This is it. This is the peak for me’,” he said. “You have to stop yourself midway through a scene and be like, ‘I’m acting with Olivia Colman!’”

O’Connor said working with Olivia Colman was ‘epic’. Picture: Netflix

He went on to explain their working relationship: “But then she’s also got this amazing thing where they call ‘cut’, and she’s like, ‘Shall we have a cup of tea?’”