The Crown cast defends themselves: “Don’t we respect grief? Once a sovereign dies, another is made “

LONDON – Diana’s interview with the BBC on her husband’s infidelity, Charles’s eagerness to ascend the throne, the monarchy as an institution that is partly anachronistic and expensive. With a fifth season leading the viewer to events of our age, The Crown returns – November 9 on Netflix
: from the marital problems of Elisabetta’s eldest son to the close friendship (perhaps something more?) of Philip with the aristocratic Penny Knatchbull, from the whims of Diana to her flirtation with Dodi Fayed, the drama conceived by Peter Morgan proposes the coming mix between reality and fiction that has ensured its success despite the thousands of criticisms that continue to accompany the series.

If former Prime Minister John Major and actress Judi Dench accuse the writers of the drama of manipulating the truth by building a treacherous and disrespectful portrait of the royal family, the interpreters are keen to remember that The Crown “is not a documentary” even if the starting point is anchored in the truth. Queen? “I never wondered if she or the rest of the family watched the drama,” actress Imelda Staunton told Corriere.
, who with her blue eyes and petite stature sports a striking resemblance to Elizabeth. “Sure, I’m sorry you’re dead, but I’m glad you’ve lived a long, rewarding life. I don’t think she was interested in looking at a fictionalized version of her life. She had her horses, dogs to take for a walk … ».
An aspect of the sovereign’s life that the script allowed her to better understand? «Her faith. She helped me capture between the tranquility, her ability to remain still. For the rest I am happy to have had time to study her role and to allow me to enter her body ».
Have you thought about giving up the role? “There is always a great responsibility, these are fascinating characters and at the same time from a technical point of view they represent an important challenge: how to show the internal conflict of a person who externally restrains himself”.
Among the accusations addressed to The Crown is that of going on the air close to the disappearance of the sovereign, but the cast is unanimous.

“It’s a script that has always been a comfort to people, which has become a staple,” says Dominic West, who plays the role of Carlo. “It would have been foolish to postpone it.” “The royal family taught us that as soon as a sovereign dies, another is made, we move on”added Olivia Williams, Camilla. And if, in this fifth season “for the royal family there are hard times”, as Jonathan Price, who takes over the role of Prince Philip, explains, there are positive aspects: “For me the amazing thing is the love between Charles and Camilla, their harmony, ”explains Williams. “There is great complicity. The way they look at each other, smile and laugh seems to confirm a deep and lasting love “.

And what a temper, Camilla. «You have long been assigned the part of the third wheel, the other. Everything has been said about her, yet she never wanted to reply: she endured and went on. ” That said, the fifth season makes an often devastating portrayal of the Windsors, a family where, Carlo points out in one of the opening episodes, no one has a happy marriage, the political forces do not understand the waste or the traditions of the house and find it difficult to interpret the struggles. internal and the compound detachment maintained in situations of great emergency. There is what Elizabeth called the annus horribilis at the time, with, in 1992, the separations of the children and the fire of Windsor Castle. It is the very thorny ground on which Diana, played by Elizabeth Debicki, is also forced to move
(surprising the similarity in manner and appearance with the Princess of Wales): an increasingly lonely and misunderstood woman within ‘the firm’, ‘the firm’, ready to tell the journalist-biographer Andrew Morton – among the another hired in reality as a consultant for the drama – all his pains. Among the twists, it is perhaps natural to consider that the most improbable aspects are moments that really happened. The invention – the dialogues and some nuances – in comparison it seems not very striking.