Elizabeth Debicki, who reprises her role as Princess Diana in the final season of The Crown, has said that a very emotional scene involving Princes Harry and William was a joy to shoot and was one of her favourite moments of her time on the show.
The first four episodes of the new series of the hit drama about the British royal family are available on Netflix now, with the final six episodes available from 14 December.
In the new season, we see romance blossoming between Diana and Dodi Fayed (Khalid Abdalla) and the feverish attention they receive from the paparazzi in the build-up to that fateful night in Paris in 1997 when they both died in a horrific car crash.
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In a key scene in episode three, we see Debicki as Diana making a phone call to her sons, William and Harry, who are at home in Balmoral, just before she takes that final, fateful journey through the Paris night.
Rufus Kampa reprises his role as William and Fflyn Edwards is also back as Harry. The two young actors are more to the fore in the new season as they struggle in the aftermath of their mother's divorce from Prince Charles, who is played by Dominic West.
Speaking via Zoom to RTÉ Entertainment, Australian actress Debicki (33) said, "I'm just so proud of them. They are just so beautiful and I only get to watch them on the other side of that call when I watch the episode, I just hear them on the phone.
"I remember shooting that scene and it was very . . . not unlike the character I was playing, I was just trying to get through the afternoon before we shot that scene because when I finally got them on the phone, it was really a relief."
She added, "A lot of the scenes around that phone call are really chaotic and high octane and I remember looking at the schedule and thinking, 'When do I get to talk to the boys?' I thought that scene was written extremely beautifully."
Another key scene in the new season sees Debicki and Abdalla involved in a fraught but honest conversation before they set out from the Ritz Hotel in Paris. It is possibly the best acting of the whole six seasons of The Crown.
"I just adore that scene," Debicki said. "It was towards the end of the shoot and Khalid and I had lived the Diana-Dodi relationship for a while and by the end of it we just loved each other so much! I think our relationship as actors was so intense because we needed each other, we needed to support each other.
"There were other scenes that were difficult, harrowing and stressful and that scene in the Ritz is such an incredible human back-and-forth conversation and it’s full of layers of love and admiration.
"It's a very honest conversation about timing and where two people are genuinely debunking the pressure of the media and the other pressures in their lives and being extremely honest with each other.
"Both of those scenes were such a joy," she added. "When I opened the script and found them there, I knew what I could do with them as an actor and how important they were to the story."
The first four episodes of The Crown series six are available on Netflix now, with the final six episodes available from Thursday, 14 December.
