Newly released footage from The Crown’s fifth season gives fans a closer look at how the show will recreate Princess Diana’s notorious Panorama interview with Martin Bashir.
The 1995 interview made headlines around the world when the Princess shared details of the breakdown of her marriage to the then Prince Charles, including his extra-marital relationship with Camilla Parker-Bowles.
The clip, which was posted on the Netflix show’s Twitter account, shows Elizabeth Debicki’s Princess Diana sitting opposite Bashir (Prasanna Puwanarajah), surrounded by lights, cameras and boom microphones.
The Princess appears on a camera monitor in another scene as Debicki repeats the iconic line “there were three of us in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded”, a reference to Charles’ affair.
A new decade; a new, all-star ensemble. Introducing the cast of The Crown Season 5. pic.twitter.com/bQ3sth5XqP
— The Crown (@TheCrownNetflix) November 2, 2022
In the teaser, Debicki suggests that the Princess was trying to “recoup control” over certain areas of her life as she felt increasingly isolated from the royal family in the aftermath of the separation.
“As a result of the marriage breaking down and how she becomes more and more removed from the rest of the royal family, that of course sort of encourages her to grow other pieces of her life and attempt to sort of recoup control of the ones that feel like they’re spiralling,” she says.
The video also includes footage of Debicki’s Diana on holiday with Prince Charles (Dominic West) and their two young sons, William and Harry, and shows the Prince telling his mother Queen Elizabeth II (Imelda Staunton) that he has “tried to make it work” with his wife.
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Speaking in this week’s issue of Radio Times magazine, Debicki addressed claims that the Princess could be “manipulative”, revealing she found it “fascinating” to discover different responses to her character after being so closely immersed in the role for so long during filming.
“There’s a part of me that goes, ‘No, I’m not,’ because I’ve been inside the character for so long,” she said. “It’s fascinating because it’s the first time we’re really hearing it, it’s interesting that that’s your read on it.”
According to Debicki, season 5 will closely examine Diana’s relationship with the tabloid media.
“The character of Diana has a very interesting relationship at that point in the story with the media, because it’s something that can be used to a perceived advantage, and then, at times, obviously it can backfire because it’s an extremely unruly beast,” she said.
The Princess’s interview with Panorama has become a source of controversy in the years since it aired. Last year, an investigation by Lord Dyson into how the report was obtained concluded that the interview was secured using “deceitful behaviour”.
The team behind The Crown have confirmed that the new season, which arrives on Netflix on 9th November, “will reflect what we now know about how the interview was obtained and how Diana was treated” but “the interview is not recreated in full.”
You can watch seasons 1-4 of The Crown right now on Netflix. Sign up for Netflix from £6.99 a month. Netflix is also available on Sky Glass and Virgin Media Stream.
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