Elizabeth Debicki has absolutely nailed Princess Diana's mannerisms and voice in her portrayal of the late People's Princess in the new season of The Crown, says biographer, journalist and royal expert Andrew Morton.
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The 69-year-old, best known for his 1992 book, Diana: Her True Story, in which he revealed some of the late Princess of Wales's struggles, has nothing but good things to say about the fifth season of the award-winning Netflix drama, which premiered November 9.
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"I was shocked at how [Elizabeth] got the mannerisms and the voice of the late princess so convincingly," he exclusively told HELLO! Canada Editor-in-Chief Alison Eastwood ahead of the November 15 release of his new book, The Queen: Her Life. "It was like being in the same room with her."
The Crown's latest set of episodes follows the Royal Family from 1991 to 1997, focusing extensively on the breakdown of Prince Charles and Princess Diana's marriage and their eventual divorce. It also examines Diana's relationship with Dodi al-Fayed and their deaths following a car crash in Paris in August 1997.
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One episode covers the process Andrew used in writing Diana: Her True Story. Andrew, who served as a consultant on the Golden Globe- and- Emmy-winning series, also says the show runners did a good job getting the storyline "pretty true" as to how the book came to be.
© Photo: Getty ImagesAndrew at his home in 2017.
"I think the question-and-answer back-and-forth between myself and Diana in episode two really conveyed the intensity of her commitment to the project and her sense of release at finally being taken seriously," he told HELLO! Canada.
In the show, Andrew's house is the subject of a break-in and Diana begins to fear her own home has been bugged.
"It was genuinely a year of living dangerously, and if anything, the episode could have been more dramatic and sinister. There was always the fear of discovery, of being watched. My job during this whole process was not only to ask questions and write the book but to come up with a strategy to protect the princess from discovery so that she would feel comfortable with the process. I think my character, played by Andrew Steele, does that."
© Photo: CustomElizabeth Debicki as Princess Diana in The Crown in a scene that depicts her infamous 1995 Panorama interview with Martin Bashir. Photo: © Netflix
Andrew's latest book, The Queen: Her Life explores how Elizabeth II rose from a shy girl to the world's most powerful woman, heading an ancient institution and modernizing it at the same time, thereby influencing the world in a way few others ever have. She also weathered plenty of difficult times as the head of state for the United Kingdom and Commonwealth. Diana and Charles's separation, along with the divorce of Princess Anne and her first husband Mark Phillips and the fire at Windsor Castle turned 1992 into what the late monarch called her "annus horribilis."
Four years after the release of Andrew's Diana: Her True Story, Her Majesty intervened in Charles and Diana's marriage, granting their divorce. Why did she wait until 1996 to do so? Andrew says she hoped things would improve between the two, but she was forced into action.
© Photo: CustomThe Queen: Her Life, Andrew Morton, $38 via Grand Central Publishing
"She even invited Diana to a state banquet," Andrew told HELLO! Canada. "She was hoping that what [then U.K. Prime Minister] John Major said in the in the House of Commons – that they had 'no plans to divorce' – was true. And I think that that was, to a degree, a mistake, because it just continued the the War of the Waleses for the next few years."
But, he says, the release of his book, David Dimbleby's The Prince of Wales: A Biography, and Diana's Panorama interview in 1995 jolted the Queen into thinking, "'Well, this is never going to stop,' and she was worried about her grandchildren. So she [authorized] the divorce."
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Prince Harry is set to release a memoir, Spare, next year, and Andrew says Diana would be very proud of her son for putting his story into words.
"As she was intimately involved in her own story – my biography – she would have approved of her son articulating his own experience," he told HELLO! Canada.
Pick up the next issue of HELLO! Canada magazine for our interview with Andrew. He shares his thoughts about his new book, Diana and The Crown and much more. You can buy the issue at newsstands across Canada and on Apple News+ on November 17!
