There were “probably a thousand” questions that Elizabeth Debicki would have asked the real-life Princess Diana — “And they would have probably been really specific,” she says.
“I’m sure there were many, many questions that I would have wanted to (ask),” she tells TODAY.com. “That’s one of the really unusual things about playing a real-life person, is that you have to let yourself take these kinds of freedoms with your choices, but you’re kind of just trying to inhabit something as honestly as you can.”
The actor returns as the late Princess of Wales in the sixth and final season of “The Crown.” Part One, which consists of four episodes, debuts Nov. 16, and Part Two’s six episodes drop Dec. 14.
Season Six of the historical drama will be among its most emotional, not only for viewers but Debicki herself. The Emmy-nominated star had to prepare herself to chronicle Diana's final moments before her 1997 fatal car crash in Paris.
A shared goal in portraying Princess Diana's untimely death
Debicki tells TODAY.com that there were two ways she managed to film the chaotic car scenes when Diana and rumored boyfriend Dodi Fayed, portrayed by Khalid Abdalla, are being chased by paparazzi.
“One was that I had an amazing scene partner,” Debicki says. “To have Khalid, he’s such a beautiful human and he plays Dodi with so much kindness and compassion. So I never ever felt like I was doing it alone.”
The actor explains that during rehearsals, they were very clear on how they would approach the scenes.
“We had a very shared goal, very shared intention of what we wanted to portray, how we wanted them to be perceived, and what we wanted to kind of give the characters,” she says. “I wouldn't have been able to stay, kind of, above the horror of that without him by my side.”
The car-chase scene was a moment too real not to react
When it came down to filming the paparazzi-filled car chases, Debicki explains that it’s difficult not to get overwhelmed — even if it’s all staged.
“When you’re in those scenes, like the particular ones you were describing of being chased and being handled and trapped in a small space, all of that is such a physical, visceral experience,” she says. “It sort of is happening to you and you just have to let yourself react to it.”
The actor adds, “If you put any human in that situation, they would find it equally unbearable, and want to get out of it as quickly as possible.”
During the filming process, Debicki says, she and Abdalla let the physical experience “inform” them and be there for one another.
As they got closer to the scenes involving Diana and Dodi’s deaths, she says, “I think there was an immense sadness there.”
“We had to manage that. And there were days where that felt really difficult, and then there were days where we felt like we were kind of getting through it,” she adds. “It’s a really unique thing to film.”
She says, ultimately, she was struck by her own emotions when living out those chase scenes for the first time: “It feels absolutely mad that it should’ve ever been happening, that that should ever happen to anybody.”
Saying goodbye to Princess Diana is a continued process
Debicki says she doesn’t really know if she’s left the character of Diana behind; there’s the physical aspect of embodying the late royal, and then there’s the emotional stress of it all.
“I feel like it’s never really that clear cut,” she solemnly says.
“First of all, your body is so involved. It did take me a long time to be able to convince my physical body that it wasn’t experiencing that much stress,” she says. “That’s a really chemical kind of thing that actors’ bodies go through. So that took, like, maybe six months to just kind of try and let my body relax and let myself feel kind of safe.”
Doing press for the show, she says, brings up strong emotions that she wasn’t expecting to feel.
“I didn’t think we were even going to be able to do (press) because of the (SAG) strike. I’m realizing now that perhaps it’s not until the thing is out in the world that you really let go,” she says. “Maybe that processing hasn’t really even happened yet. I don’t know.”
She adds, “Maybe it’ll be a long time. All I know is that I’m proud of it, and I hope that people kind of get what they need out of it.”