West admits he found the role “very poignant”.
Dominic West has opened up about working with the young actors portraying Harry and William in The Crown, who often show “anger” towards their father throughout the series.
The upcoming episodes, which will begin streaming from next week, explore the fate of the late Princess Diana and how her death affected her family and those closest to her.
Dominic West has revealed what it was like working with the actors portraying his sons in the royal drama, something he found “very poignant”.
He explained: “There were quite a lot of them and I found it quite easy because I’ve got two boys the same age and, though they don’t give me as hard a time as William was giving Charles this season, it was great actually. I felt on solid ground there, I knew what I was doing.
“I am a father of two boys that age, and I think I’m always trying to fight Charles’s corner and I’m always trying to present him in a good light and I don’t always succeed in doing that, but I think in the latter half of the season where William is giving him a really hard time and he’s very angry with him and won’t talk to him and he can’t get through to him, to his son, I can understand how that feels.”
Season 6 of The Crown portrays the lives of Prince William and Harry as they come of age, and so two actors will play each as their younger and older selves.
Rufus Kampa plays Prince William in Part 1 and Ed McVey plays him in Part 2, while Fflyn Edwards plays Prince Harry in Part 1 and Luther Ford portrays him in Part 2.
“I don’t, fortunately, have that with my boys yet, but it’s another way in which Charles is being punished and I think all parents are punished eventually by their children,” continued West.
Read more:
- The Crown’s Dominic West on how memoir Spare changed Charles and Harry scenes
- The Crown season 5 and 6 cast: Full list of actors and characters
He added: “Ultimately, they have to reject us in order to grow up in a way and I think when something horrifically tragic like happened to those two boys, their mother dying, someone gets the blame and Peter has written that most of the blame goes to Charles, and it probably did, and I found that very poignant and moving because it requires unconditional love.”
West acknowledged that portraying the dynamic between William and Charles requires “unconditional acceptance”, because William is a child.
“You can’t get angry, you can’t get defensive, you can’t reason,” he explained further.
“You just have to love and admit your inadequacies and I think all parents have to do that. I’ve found that very moving.”
The Crown season 6 part 1 is streaming on Netflix from Thursday 16th November 2023. Sign up for Netflix from £4.99 a month. Netflix is also available on Sky Glass and Virgin Media Stream.
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