English actress Emma Corrin is best known for portraying Diana, Princess of Wales, in the fourth season of the Netflix period drama programme The Crown.
We find out more about how she felt portraying such an iconic figure, as she hands over the reins to Elizabeth Debicki for Season 5.
Golden Globes win: best actress in a drama TV series
The Crown cleaned up at this year's Golden Globes, with Emma Corrin winning best actress in a drama TV series, and her co-star Josh O'Connor claiming best actor for his portrayal of Prince Charles.
The show was also named best drama series, and Gillian Anderson won best supporting actress for her portrayal of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher on the series.
Emma was visibly shocked as her name was called to confirm she had won. In her acceptance speech she thanked Josh, referring to him as "my prince charming" and also shared her gratitude to Diana, "You have taught me compassion and empathy beyond anything I could ever imagine."
After it was revealed in an interview on The Late Late Show With James Corden that Prince Harry watches The Crown, Emma shared that she feels incredibly moved by what Prince Harry said, "Certainly the way he spoke about it and the fact that he’s watched it, that obviously I’ve played his mother and that would be such a sensitive thing. I was very moved by the fact that he acknowledged it.
"It’s difficult, because The Crown – Peter’s version of The Crown - is fictional, it feels so removed from the actual royal family," Emma continues, "So on one level it feels very separate but on the other hand the characters are based on real people and so there is certainly a responsibility to acknowledge them in some way."
Saying goodbye to Diana
Emma has earned rave reviews for her work on the series as Diana. But after playing the infamous character from age 16 to 28, she felt ready to hand the role off to Elizabeth Debicki.
“I felt like I was with her for such an arc — it was time for me to move on. I can’t wait to see what Elizabeth does,” Emma says.
The Crown series 4 plot
In series 4 Emma starred alongside Olivia Colman as Queen Elizabeth II, Emerald Fennell as Camilla Parker Bowles, Gillian Anderson as Margaret Thatcher, Helena Bonham Carter as Princess Margaret, and Josh O'Connor as Prince Charles.
The focus of this series is around the time Prince Charles is turning thirty and begins to look for a suitable wife and the beautiful Lady Diana Spencer enters the frame, hailing from one of the grandest and most established aristocratic families in the country.
When she meets Prince Charles as an impressionable teenager she quickly falls in love. After a brief courtship, Charles proposes and Diana is quickly propelled from the life of a normal teenage girl into one as the Princess of Wales.
Across the series she goes on a transformational journey to become a global superstar, but the fairytale marriage portrayed in the world’s media isn’t quite what it appears to be.
"I think that Diana had this way of giving herself so completely in everything that she did and so she appeared to everyone as this tower of strength and love even when she was ARGUABLY suffering," shares Emma. "From my research it seems as though she was always balancing the different sides of herself, she was able to radiate that brilliance and compassion that we all fell in love with even when she was suffering."
Diana's and Charles' families had known each other for a long time, in fact her family had lived on part of the Royal estate. When Diana was 16, she met Charles because he dated her sister, so they bumped into each other and then they met again a bit later.
"In The Crown's version of events, you see Diana attend Lord Mounbatten’s funeral where she watches Charles and sees herself in the immense sadness in him," adds Emma. "Her condolences and her maturity resonate with him - soon after that they go on an official date - to the Opera, chaperoned by her grandmother.
"Of course, things really progress when Diana is taken up to Balmoral. When you are invited to Balmoral, it's ultimately a test, and I think Diana knew this. Balmoral is where the Royal family are most at home and so if you are invited you know that is make or break, so she turned on the charm."
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After Balmoral, Diana comes to terms for the first time with the idea that she is to fill a role and what that means for her as an individual, as well as for her marriage.
"It's a struggle that each of the Royal Family go through, coming to terms with their own roles, how conflicted everyone is about finding their sense of duty," Emma says. "I found that really interesting because I guess it is very easy to see them as symbols, see the public side of them and not actually realise the things they are dealing with having landed this weird kind of role.
"I think something incredibly interesting happens to Diana at this point," continues Emma, "because it coincides with Diana growing up, becoming a woman, discovering who she is, her sense of self and her voice. And so, you have these two things running in parallel, which is the mounting tragedy of her marriage failing, and also her growth and popularity and celebrity in the world.
"There is this tipping point where she realises the marriage is essentially over and she’s reached rock bottom. In an interview at the time I think she says, 'I realised I had a duty and I had a role to play and my work wasn’t done'. Diana decided she wasn't going to give up and I think that’s a beautiful thing, where she finds that strength at her lowest, lowest point."
How Emma approached playing such a famous and real-life person
As Emma mentions above, although The Crown is a fictional series, the characters are based on real people and there is a duty to treat them as such, as people.
"There's a huge sense of responsibility because no matter how well we do this it is always going to step on this family's sense of loss because it is real and it is so sad, the story - and also so recent," shares Emma.
"However I think you have to put that aside because Peter’s writing, The Crown, for all that it stands up for facts in real life, the characters are a fictitious portrayal.
"I did a lot of research beforehand, and there is an amazing research team behind The Crown who produce these huge binders of information and recommended reading. So I read quite a lot of books and there is a documentary on Netflix called Diana: In Her Own Words, which was incredibly helpful because it is narrated by her using the secret interviews she did.
"I also got to talk to Patrick Jepson who was her Private Secretary when she was a bit older, and a character who features in the series, " says Emma. "He has such good insight - the kind of things that only someone who knew her very well would know. He said she was so much fun, she had a sense of fun that was contagious and that was so wonderful to hear.
"When I got the script, I realised I had to set the research aside in a sense, and concentrate on the material I had in front of me - the scripts and the character that Peter had created. It felt like it was now up to me to flesh this person out.
"I worked a lot with the dialect coach on her voice, which was a key part of her, and the movement coach as movement really helps characterisation. We spent a long time on how she moved through the worlds, how she would stand in a doorway. Those little details helped so much to make it less scary. It is a huge responsibility and also a huge honour."
Emma on working with co-star Josh O'Connor (Prince Charles)
"Josh is amazing," beams Emma." I couldn’t have asked for a better companion to spend those months with. We got on incredibly well, he's got a huge sense of fun which is brilliant to take you out if you have been doing intense scenes.
"He is such a detailed and subtle actor, I feel like I learnt so much watching him. He really captures Charles’ ongoing conflict - between his duty in his role, what his heart wants and what he feels like he should do. With Peter’s scripts too, I think you do feel sympathetic to both Diana and Charles but also frustration with both of them."
The highs and lows of playing Diana
"Of course, there were intense days, especially with Diana, it's so dark so much of the time," says Emma. "I remember there were two days in a row, with the dance and then the song that Diana performs for Charles. On the second day we did the song and they got in the actual West End cast to support me.
"I am a singer, I can sing, but I hadn't done it for a while and it was incredibly exposing to be on this stage with these professionals. The tempo of the music was different to the version I had learnt so it was terrifying. I thought I wouldn't be able to do it.
"At the same time, this is the scene in which Diana goes through something hugely emotional, this is her reaching out to Charles to show him that she loves him, and I very nearly couldn't do it. The ADs/director were like, we get it, this is huge, take all the time you need. Feeling that support of everyone around is so great, you know that they have got you, you know they understand what we are creating.
"My favourite thing was working with Sid and Amy from the costume team. We had such a fun time," says Emma. "Diana's Wardrobe is like a character in itself, so to go through that and do the fittings, with the wedding dress making, was so fun.
"The wedding dress was a huge, huge thing. It went on very gradually, so they had to put it all together and there were so many fittings for hours. When we finally did it all and got it on, it was crazy. It was one thing to try it on without my wig but when I put my wig on, it was almost quite terrifying because the significance of that image for people is massive.
"It was a weird moment, when we were filming that scene in these three huge rooms, the crew were all sitting up at one end and at the other end, I had the ten people trying to put me in this dress with the train which was so long. No one had seen me and then when the doors opened everyone fell silent because I think everyone felt, out of respect you shouldn't speak.
"But she had so many outfits, especially in the later episodes when she started taking more risks and being more playful with fashion, she had this YSL bomber jacket which was so great. I loved her casual stuff, the jeans and jumpers were very her. There were two jumpers which were also replicas - one was a sheep jumper, one of which is in the V&A, we got the only other one in the world. There was another one she wears in episode one - a pink jumper - and the original makers hand made one for us.
"Her fashion marked such a change in the Royal family, it kind of modernised them quite a lot and she took it to another level, working with designers, going to the Met Gala."