Who’s In Charge TheH new seasone of Ther Crowne? exposes the drama, corruption, betrayal, and lies that drive the monarchy. Oh, and then there’s that affair… BY ELIZABETH HOLMES PHOTOGRAPHS BY DANNY KASIRYE STYLED BY MIKE ADLER t’s a legendary story, this one,” says Josh O’Connor, flashing a sly, dimpled smile. The British actor, who plays Prince Charles in The Crown, then launches into the serendipi- tous details—not of the real life love triangle involving Charles, Camilla Parker Bowles, and Lady Diana Spencer, which drives so much of the drama in the series’s fourth season, but rather of the day of auditions that led to the casting of an unknown actress to play one of the most iconic women of the 20th century. ON CORRIN: MAX MARA COAT The story begins in 2018, as the third season of The Crown is getting ($2,890) AND SWEATER ($945); “ I BULGARI HIGH JEWELRY NECKLACE; underway. The casting team was on the hunt for their Camilla and BOUCHERON EARRINGS ($7,650). ON O’CONNOR: SALVATORE brought in O’Connor to read with a few front-runners. They hadn’t FERRAGAMO JACKET ($2,100), SHIRT started their search for Diana yet, as her character wouldn’t make an ($690), AND TROUSERS ($730). ON entrance until the following season. But they needed a warm body FENNELL: BOTTEGA VENETA COAT AND SHIRT; BOUCHERON EARRINGS to run her lines. ($7,650) AND RINGS (FROM $4,620); SARAH HO LONDON NECKLACE TOWNANDCOUNTRYMAG.COM | NOVEMBER 2020 2 Emma Corrin, then just 22 Corrin had another six years old, got the call through months to prepare, and a team her agent, who stressed that it ready to help. The show’s move- was not an audition. “But, obvi- ment coach, Polly Bennett, ously, I was like, ‘I’m going to worked with her on abstract prepare as if it were,’ ” Corrin Diana concepts, like how the says. Without the benefit of princess might stand in a door a hair, makeup, or wardrobe frame (centered, leaning on one department, Corrin focused side) and what kind of animal on what she had: her voice. she might be (not a deer in She analyzed Diana’s speech the headlights, as Corrin first patterns with the help of her thought, but a cat: curious, com- mother, a speech therapist. “No posed, a bit calculating). Still, it matter what Diana is saying, it was Corrin’s newcomer status kind of goes down at the end,” that proved the most useful on Corrin says, slipping into the set. “If we had gotten an expe- hauntingly similar imitation rienced actress, it would have that makes her so believable. been an actress acting being “It’s like a sadness.” nervous,” Morgan says. “Trust Corrin was a toddler when me, Emma was nervous on Diana died and has no memory every day that we were filming,” of her. Stepping into the cast- calling it “enormously helpful.” ing room that day, she also had no experience acting on tele- he Crown’s fourth install- vision. And yet she captivated ment spans the 1980s, a the crowd. “I was in awe of Ttransformative decade for her,” O’Connor tells me. “This the British royal family largely young actress who hadn’t done because of Diana. But the Peo- an awful lot, and here she was ple’s Princess is not the frame- inhabiting Diana, seemingly work for these 10 episodes. quite easily.” The Crown’s cre- Once again Morgan centers the ator and writer Peter Morgan season on the prime minister at was entranced too. For Diana’s the time, Margaret Thatcher. As debut into his award-winning divisive a figure as Thatcher was, Netflix series, Morgan wasn’t the approach poses some new looking for someone to play the challenges. “When you’ve got global superstar she eventually Charles and Diana as a narra- became; he needed the fidgety tive, everything else feels a bit 19-year-old girl to whom the “When you’ve got Charles and like eating vegetables, right?” he Prince of Wales proposed. “We says. “The other narratives are spent our whole time just star- Diana as a narrative, everything necessarily going to be slightly ing at this woman reading the more tired.” lines going, ‘Wow, she’s kind of else feels a bit like eating Well, not entirely. The series perfect,’ ” Morgan says. is known for recasting its stars Zooming with Corrin from vegetables, right?” every second season, which some 5,000 miles away, I feel allows multiple narratives to that too. Perched in front of a tree-filled window in her London keep crackling past what could have been a sell-by date. Consider home, she often leans so close to the screen that her forehead is cut too that the story has progressed to the point where the principal off. Her white tank top and cutoff jean shorts are paired rebelliously players are now well into middle age; having new actors appear every well with blue gemstone statement earrings, a nod to the princess’s other season lets The Crown embrace this stage of its characters’ lives. sapphire engagement ring. “I hate being asked what it’s like to play Helena Bonham Carter, who returns as Princess Margaret, welcomes someone iconic,” Corrin says (though, for the record, I hadn’t). “It the chance to carry the troubled spare into her fifth decade. “It’s so makes her untouchable—the whole point was that she was touchable.” nice to be employed and [able to] show off our age,” the 54-year-old Although Corrin impressed the Crown team on that first day, says. Olivia Colman reprises her role as the queen with more gray she wasn’t given the part straight away; an extended courtship was at her temples and a simmering impatience. “It’s nice to play a little required. It took eight months for director Ben Caron to make her bit of bitterness, a little bit of jealousy,” Colman says. “All of these an offer. “It was the most exciting proposal I’ll probably ever receive emotions which are much more interesting than—” OPPOSITE: PRADA COAT ($3,100), SHIRT ($980), PANTS ($1,840), AND BOOTS. ABOVE, ON CORRIN: GUCCI TOP ($4,200), DRESS ($7,500), AND PUMPS ($1,350); SARAH HO in my life,” Corrin says. To celebrate, she got a blue merle cockapoo “Innocence,” Bonham Carter interjects. “Youth? Overrated!” LONDON EARRINGS ($23,800); ELIZABETH GAGE RINGS (FROM $6,075). ON O’CONNOR: and named him Spencer. Season four takes The Crown into new territory—in that GUCCI JACKET ($3,980), SWEATER ($750), SHIRT ($580), AND PANTS ($1,980) 3 NOVEMBER 2020 | TOWNANDCOUNTRYMAG.COM it will be familiar territory. The her way around the circle to greet events it covers are recent enough them in the proper order. Later that many of us have lived them, come elocution lessons, with a and obsessed over them, in real rope tied around Diana’s waist time. There is Charles and Diana’s to keep her from moving her courtship and historic undoing, arms while speaking. Her pain is but also episodes dedicated to illustrated by her bulimia, seen in the Falklands War and sanctions several painful scenes of bingeing in South Africa. Morgan spends and purging. a year writing each season, work- “The coldness, the traditions, ing with a team of five researchers. and the expectations of behav- “When people say we get things ior…I don’t think she expected wrong, we’re like, ‘We did not get that,” Corrin says. “I think she things wrong! We chose what hap- expected to join a family.” As for pened,’ ” says Annie Sulzberger, the situation today, the actress sees head of the research team. The some parallels. “You just want to fudging that usually happens is shake these tabloids and say, can’t that timelines get condensed for you see history repeating itself?” dramatic effect. Margaret Thatcher lends her Still, the popularity of The own perspective on the Wind- Crown has given the series a pro- sors during a disastrous weekend found responsibility, shaping these Each season of The Crown is framed by Queen Elizabeth’s relationship with a prime of shooting at Balmoral. “What am historical events for a new genera- minister. In season four it’s Gillian Anderson as Margaret Thatcher, whose chilly I doing here?” snarls the sublime tion. The show is a dramatization, dealings with the monarch offer both high drama and serious 1980s style. Gillian Anderson, in full Thatcher not a documentary, but it is often garb. “They aren’t sophisticated or received as mostly fact. This season, in particular, will be shocking cultured or elegant or anything close to an ideal. They’re—” “Boor- to younger viewers unfamiliar with Charles and Diana’s story, and ish, snobbish, and rude?” her husband offers. just how ugly things got. Thatcher’s years as prime minister, 1979 to 1990, turn this season Speaking of ugly, it’s impossible to watch Diana’s entrance and of The Crown into a study of women in power: what they do with it attempts to acclimate without thinking of the treatment of Meghan and what it does to them. Anderson’s Thatcher “was like having a ON FENNELL: DIOR DRESS, CORSET, NECKLACE, CUFF, RING, AND SANDALS. ON O’CONNOR: Markle. Besieged by racist tabloids and reportedly unsupported by ghost around,” Bonham Carter says. You can tell Morgan delighted DIOR MEN JACKET ($3,900), KEYCHAIN ($4,400), SHIRT ($3,900), PANTS ($1,050), AND BOOTS the royal family, Prince Harry and his bride left their roles as senior in the dichotomy Thatcher embodied as the first female prime min- ($1,750).