EXCLUSIVE: The director of Netflix drama The Crown‘s episodes re-creating Princess Diana’s death in Paris 26 years ago has revealed the extraordinary efforts that went into ensuring it was handled with tact.
Speaking exclusively to Deadline, Christian Schwochow, who directed the three crucial Season 6 episodes that feature what are likely to be some of the most talked about moments on television this year, said that though shots were filmed of Diana, played by Elizabeth Debicki, in the Paris morgue, there was never any intention of them being included in the final edit.
The filmmaker directed the second episode from the final season of Peter Morgan’s British royal drama, titled “Two Photographs”; episode 3 (“Dis-Moi-Oui”), which features the crash; and episode 4, titled “Aftermath.”
Schwochow also confirmed reports from last October that the crash involving the Mercedes-Benz, driven by Henri Paul and carrying Diana, Dodi Fayed and security consultant Trevor Rees-Jones, would not be shown.
“We did film Diana, but very respectfully — not in a big close-up,” said Schwochow. This enabled Dominic West to perform his scenes as her former husband Prince Charles at the hospital, he added.
“It was very, very clear to us that we don’t want to see her dead body. I actually think that it was not a discussion. Not even in the first version of the cut we would ever see her body,” Schwochow said, emphatically.
Season 6 of The Crown also stars Imelda Staunton as Queen Elizabeth, Jonathan Pryce as Prince Philip, Lesley Manville as Princess Margaret, Olivia Williams as Camilla Parker Bowles, Marcia Warren as Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, Bertie Carvel as Prime Minister Tony Blair, and a graceful turn by Jamie Parker as Robin Janvrin, at that time the Queen’s deputy private secretary.
Schwochow revealed that the sensitive scenes he filmed were shot not long after Queen Elizabeth’s death in September last year “and we all felt the conscious memory of people.”
He told us that the season includes “so many moments of sadness and grief. I don’t know how many times I had to cry behind my monitors because it’s so incredibly intense to re-create these moments. Not only to re-create them, but to create our truth, which is hopefully as truthful as you can get in fiction.”
Whatever the intention, there is going to be heat around the upcoming season; there has already been criticism from those who have only watched the trailer. The Crown‘s final season is split into two; the first four episodes, which chronicle Diana’s final days, will drop November 16, the rest will debut December 14.
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Breaking Baz has watched all four Part 1 episodes. They are deeply upsetting, as you would expect them to be, but handled with sincere sensitivity. For instance, when the Queen, Philip and Charles are informed by Janvrin that Diana has not survived the crash, the conversation is silent — we do not hear what words are uttered. The same device is used when Charles tells William and Harry, played by Rufus Kampa and Fflyn Edwards, respectively.
“We don’t have to see and hear that three or four times,” Schwochow said. “We try to give all the characters their private space with their grief and sadness to not exploit these emotions too much.”
The production had access to a big chunk of CCTV footage gathered from the Ritz hotel in Paris the night of the tragedy, where Diana and Dodi had eaten that evening. “We could make our own observations about the physicality between Dodi and Diana,” Schwochow explained. “We couldn’t hear anything, but we could see how they touched, how they laughed. And even though we knew she had been crying in the restaurant, we could really observe and see how much they felt at ease and how comfortable she was.”
Schwochow cited scenes involving West and Staunton, where Debicki as Diana has a conversation with them after her death. ”Let’s call Diana not a ghost. It’s like a conversation that Charles would probably love to have in that moment, and the same with the Queen,” he said. Salim Daw’s Mohamed Al-Fayed has a similar encounter with Khalid Abdulla’s Dodi.
West’s “raw emotions” were real when he filmed that final “appearance” with Diana. “Elizabeth [Debicki] was there to see Dominic’s performance in the hospital, so she knows exactly how raw he was,” added Schwochow. Similarly, scenes he filmed of Staunton’s Queen Elizabeth displaying emotion were “incredible” to shoot.
“I always encourage the actors to go deeper into the emotion. Even though we haven’t usually seen the Queen and the royals showing emotion, there’s another persona when they’re not within public view. I would always encourage Imelda to show something to the camera that the public might not have seen. Not to have her weeping, not to be melodramatic, but to give her moments as a very human woman. Our Queen must have had moments where she felt very vulnerable and needed a moment before she got her strength together and went off to the next thing.”
William and Harry have their touching moments too, and both of the young actors portraying them are superb. A lingering shot on Harry (Edwards) as he walks behind his mother’s coffin is particularly affecting.
“I asked him to take everything in but not to show his emotion, and that’s usually something that makes the actor think a lot and makes him active during the scene, Schwochow said. “Fflyn is very attached to his emotions, so you capture him actively trying not to show his grief and sadness.”
It makes for a memorable moment in The Crown.
Asked if that lingering shot made him think that there should be a drama series about Harry, Schwochow laughed and responded that his “royal duty” is over. “I don’t think we need it,” he added.
Schwochow had previously directed episodes in Season 3 and Season 5 before this last batch. “There are so many reasons why I had to come back,” he said. “It felt like I would love to be part of the final chapter.”