Every actor on The Crown has a different way of handling the outpouring of scorn and angst from Buckingham Palace and the British media. Jonathan Pryce is quite angry that the show is being criticized in any way. Imelda Stauton keeps insisting that she has the utmost respect for QEII and the monarchy. Elizabeth Debicki wants to simply avoid discussing the controversy altogether. Dominic West – who plays Prince Charles – has a completely different strategy and it’s shady as hell. West keeps insisting that Charles is also a victim, that he has the utmost sympathy for Charles, that poor Charles couldn’t do anything right. Hilariously, West is also spilling tea about what Camilla and Charles have said to him personally. It’s amazing.
As it turns out, Dominic West had to deliberate whether to take the role given his own personal connection with Charles, who he has met on multiple occasions – and he has also shared a cheeky comment that Charles’s wife Camilla, now Queen Consort, made to him after he was cast.
West told this week’s Radio Times magazine that when he saw Camilla at a party in 2021, she cheekily called him “Your Majesty”, appearing to signal her approval or acceptance of the casting.
West also revealed in this interview that upon deciding to take the role on, he offered his resignation as an ambassador for the Prince’s Trust, in case it would be perceived as a conflict of interests considering Charles’s role with the charity. West revealed that the resignation was refused in a letter from Charles’s private secretary and that the letter said, in essence, “You do what you like, you’re an actor. It’s nothing to do with us.”
West explained: “I think that’s probably how [Charles] regards it. I’ve been in a line to shake his hand a few times and it’s fascinating. It’s very useful to meet the character you’re playing, obviously.”
[From Radio Times]
Narrator’s voice: that is not how Charles regards it. Charles is literally masterminding a Palace smear campaign against The Crown. Charles is terrified that ten hours of prestige streaming programming will blow up his limited “popularity.” Dominic also spoke to the Guardian about the “tampon phone call” and Charles’s bad energy in the 1990s. I love West’s enthusiasm.
On the tampon phone call: “My memory of it is that it was sort of filthy and dirty and really embarrassing, but actually, in the playing of it, it was much more like two middle-aged lovers being sweet to each other. If any one of us had our intimate phone conversations reproduced verbatim in every newspaper in the world, imagine what that’s like. Imagine how awful that is. It just strikes you as being a horrible breach of privacy that no one should have to suffer.”
West insists that he has sympathy for Charles: “I have such a deep sense of sympathy with Charles. In many ways he had witnessed how his position had destroyed Diana, and he was having to see that same thing happen to Camilla. I think that’s the hardest part about being the Prince of Wales…. There was nothing Charles could do, no PR stunt he could pull, no PR adviser who was going to make his position any better. He was on a losing ticket the whole time. Peter was keen to show that, and how he really couldn’t do anything right at the time.”
[From The Guardian]
It can’t actually be both – Charles’s “position had destroyed Diana” AND “there was nothing Charles could do.” Charles was the one actively destroying Diana. He was actively cheating on her and painting her as a mad woman, a crazy harpy who would not give him a moment’s peace. And West is right, it always blew back on Charles – when Diana was around, the people were always on her side. Anyway, while I’ve never been a Dominic West fan, I f–king love the way he’s promoting The Crown. It’s hilarious.
Photos courtesy of Netflix/The Crown.
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