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Elizabeth Debicki recalls 'challenge' of recreating Princess Diana's tapes

Elizabeth Debicki recalls 'challenge' of recreating Princess Diana's tapes
/ © Cover Media

Elizabeth Debicki opened up about the process of recreating Princess Diana’s tapes.

While speaking to Entertainment Weekly, The Crown star discussed how she recreated Princess Diana’s tapes in the show.

Elizabeth, 32, portrays the late Princess Diana on The Crown’s fifth season. In one episode, Diana records details of her life in the royal family on tape for journalist Andrew Morton.

“I came to this character with a pretty blank canvas,” Elizabeth admitted to EW. “I’m Australian, shock-horror, and I was very young during this period of history, so I didn’t have any lived memory of it. What I learned, I learned through Peter (Morgan)’s interpretation and then the research archive department that assists in building a very solid foundation of the actual historical events.”

The Crown series creator Peter Morgan wrote the script, and the show’s research department sent Elizabeth materials to work with.

But, the actress confessed, “Eventually you have to just throw it all away and do the scene.”

Describing Diana’s portrayal as “a fascinating and complex task”, Elizabeth explained, “It's extremely unusual that you would just suddenly have this portal opened up where you can access that kind of reality, and that emotional truth, of your character, and then find ways to reinterpret it as an actor. I found it to be a really rich experience and a real challenge as well.

“I recently watched that episode, and I feel the way Jess Hobbs directed it brings all the pieces together in this really satisfying way.”

Season 5 of The Crown is currently streaming on Netflix.

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