The Crown: The Official Podcast

Princess Diana: No one prepares you for what it's like to be separated.

It's a strange sort of no man's land, or no woman's land, neither married nor single….

It's time to focus on episode seven titled 'No Woman's Land'.

Diana is left isolated and lonely after her separation from Charles and William leaving home to start school at Eton. Her paranoia continues to escalate and a journalist with a plan is fanning the flames. But will she find her freedom in her relationship with Hasnat Khan? Or by entrusting Martin Bashir to expose her version of events to the world?

We’ll cover specific events and scenes that feature in this episode so, if you haven’t watched episode seven yet, I suggest you might go and do it now, or soon. 

Edith Bowman: But first, it's time to meet the phenomenal actor playing this final iteration of Princess Diana in this season, Elizabeth Debicki. 

In the first of two conversations with Elizabeth on this episode, I met up with her very fresh from filming on set at Elstree Studios, and this was her first interview about the role. We sat down on the very comfortable couches in her Kensington Palace apartment set.

Edith Bowman: Elizabeth, thank you for, it's weird ‘cause we're in your drawing room. 

Elizabeth Debicki: Yeah. 

Edith Bowman: It's weird for you.

Elizabeth Debicki: It is so weird for me and invasive. 

Edith Bowman: I'm sorry.

Elizabeth Debicki: I really do feel strange being here in these clothes and other people, I sort of feel like I have to protect my parrots. Look at those parrots over there. 

Edith Bowman: The parrots on the mantelpiece are phenomenal. 

Elizabeth Debicki: I'm so fond of them. 

Edith Bowman: Do you have names for them? 

Elizabeth Debicki: No, I don't, but I'm not one of those people that names everything. There's another parrot there and it's got a candle sticking out of it. 

Edith Bowman: There's a lot of birds. 

Elizabeth Debicki: Yeah. 

Edith Bowman: Thank you for chatting to us. And, I've been lucky enough to see a couple of episodes of the new season of 'The Crown', congratulations. 

Elizabeth Debicki: And now I'm nervous. 

Edith Bowman: Don't be. Don't be. Do you mind going back though, and talking to me about what was the attraction to, to this project?

Elizabeth Debicki: My love of 'The Crown' was very kind of organic because, one of my dearly beloved friends, Vanessa Kirby, plays Princess Margaret in season one and two. And so I remember, way back when I was young, that she kept talking about this show, 'The Crown'. And I remember sitting down to watch the first episode. I remember just being so proud of her and she was in this huge, lush thing and it looked amazing.

It was so gorgeous to look at, and it was so lavish and she was so good. And so, I always had this really sort of strong emotional connection to it. I also thought it was a kind of revolutionary thing, because we've obviously seen a lot of period dramas, you know, I love that genre so much, but there was something new about what this did, because it was so vivid and it had this kind of modernity to it, I guess.

And so it really drew me in and I also thought the performances were incredible. 

Edith Bowman: So, how did the role present itself to you? 

Elizabeth Debicki: So it's a kind of a funny story. Well, I dunno if it's funny, that I actually went in to audition for, I never told anyone this, I went into audition for another role and I did that audition and thought I, it was terrible, I thought I'd blown it. But I think that was the beginning of my relationship to Diana, because I think whatever happened in that audition... 

Edith Bowman: Wow. 

Elizabeth Debicki: …umm, kind of sparked something in their minds.

Edith Bowman: Did you speak to Vanessa about it then? When, when it came back round? 

Elizabeth Debicki: I think I called Noo when they said 'come in for this small part' and I was like, 'ughh it's your show! I don't think I can do it.' You know.

Edith Bowman: Let's hang out. 

Elizabeth Debicki: Yeah. If I can finally see you if I get this part. You know, she was probably like, 'go do it, you know, it'll be fine'. And thank God I did to be honest.

Edith Bowman: Well how lovely then that she appears in this season as well then. That's so nice. 

Elizabeth Debicki: The only time we ever see each other is in film world.

Edith Bowman: Well, from that experience, I guess from the, from the fact that, you know, you know, the show, but what was your experience of coming to be a main character on this? 

Elizabeth Debicki: I always trusted that it was going to be like a family, and that, by the time I came to do this season, that it was such a, a incredibly well-oiled machine to step onto with people who really know what they're doing.

Edith Bowman: Yeah. 

Elizabeth Debicki: When you come to make something, your first experience of what the show is actually usually comes from your hair and makeup designer and your costume designer. 

Edith Bowman: Yeah.

Elizabeth Debicki: Cause they're the first artists that you are sort of gonna bump up against and have the big conversations with. The, the first time sometimes that you let yourself investigate something fully, might be in the makeup chair. And I, yeah, I was really fortunate, super fortunate that I had such sensitive and incredibly talented artists, Kate Hall, who is the hair and makeup designer, my makeup artist, Debbie, and Sid and Amy, who are this phenomenal team, costume designing and Jess Hobbs who was directing one and two. And so I was very held, thank God. 

Edith Bowman: What a team. 

Elizabeth Debicki: Yeah. Well, I mean, what a ferocious team. 

Edith Bowman: Yeah. 

Elizabeth Debicki: Yeah.

Edith Bowman: One of the other amazing collaborators is finding voice and movement as well with things. How important was that side? 

Elizabeth Debicki: Dialect and movement is fascinating, and can be kind of terrifying, and also can be frustrating, and then you can have these breakthroughs. And for me, it's so muscular dialect, ‘cause you're literally sort of training your mouth to move in a really different way. And I've had experiences of, with dialect, where you sort of feel like you can't do this simple thing and it can be this incredibly infuriating moment.

And I had this a few times with Diana really early on with, with dialect where I would be sitting on a kitchen chair, not moving my body at all, looking at a, a screen, working through vowels and and I would be sweating, just sweating, sitting still because of this incredible concentration it was taking for me to connect all these new dots in terms of being able to sort of achieve just in a muscular sense, this accent that was very, very different from my own and sits in a completely different place. And also it's, again, it's the first time you take a step in, towards becoming this person. And there is a pressure there, I think dialect wise and movement wise. You know, that people know what they sound like and you know, that people know how they move, and it's a really important puzzle piece to sort of get inside of.

Princess Diana: Hello, darling.

…..Princess Diana: I miss you terribly. My wise monosyllabic owl.

Edith Bowman: With Diana, there's so much expectation, we know the world loved her. Going into this, did you try and leave all that kind of aside? Because you are, you're an actor, you're playing a character but she's still there, she's still, obviously, you know, part of what you are playing was a real person. 

Elizabeth Debicki: The answer in a way is quite simple, which is what I discovered, which was kind of also a relief to discover, which was that we are doing Peter's version. And I remember in the beginning before I had a script feeling that sense of awareness being enormous, you know, the scope of how much should I know, how much should you research? How much should you look at? 

And then came the script into my lap and I felt, I felt like I landed somewhere on a map, I suppose. And you think this is the blueprint, these are the boxes I now unpack. They're the ones that he's sort of put here for me to look through. And so that's the guide really. 

Edith Bowman: How would you describe her journey in this season?

Elizabeth Debicki: Gosh, that's a big question. There is something undeniably triumphant. In a way it's a small and quiet and very human triumph, but it's one of survival and not just survival, but of a real evolution and into becoming the person that you need to be for yourself.

We’ll hear more from Elizabeth later in the podcast, but first let’s focus in on episode seven of season five, ‘No Woman’s Land’, which is very significant in Diana’s journey this season. I spoke with director Eric Richter-Strand. 

Erik Richter Strand: It’s an episode that very much centres on Diana and how she in the fall of 1995, met Martin Bashir and was ensnared into agreeing to doing an interview, which would later come back to haunt her and become quite infamous. At the same time, the episode also deals with how she meets another man, Hasnat Khan, a potential love interest and someone she grew very fond of.

So it's both these two storylines come from her sense of loneliness, hence the title in 'No Woman's Land' her, finding herself in this middle role where she's neither nor Royal, nor normal or personal or private and trying to just cope with that and being in that part of her life, a very easy prey for someone who comes in and tries to manipulate her.

Edith Bowman: Was it hard to remove your own opinions about particularly how that interview came about? You know, there's, since it happened, obviously there's been in the last couple of years, there's been investigations done on what went on at that time, but is it hard to kind of remove your own personal opinion about things like that when you're working out how to portray that within the, the show?

Erik Richter Strand: Not really difficult because yes, you're right, I mean, actually this script was written while the Dyson Report was still being commissioned or still being presented. 

Edith Bowman: Yeah. 

Erik Richter Strand: And hadn't yet been presented, I think, when the first versions of the script came out. So the script was following a line of reasoning that turned out to be, validated in a way by the Dyson Report when it came out. And we, we learned that we could probably go even further with it, but the idea was to portray what happened, how it may have happened, and what effect it had on Diana and the entire country. The trick is you don't want to just make Martin Bashir into a villain who you cannot sympathise with.

Edith Bowman: Yeah. 

Erik Richter Strand: You have to try to create a version of both Martin Bashir and Diana that you can both sympathise with. You can sympathise with both of them in the situation that they find themselves in. There are some things in there that I find are essential in order for us to be able to understand that it wasn't just some evil man trying to do some evil things.

Edith Bowman: You mentioned there when we were talking about where we find in this episode and loneliness being a word that you used, in terms of reflecting that on screen there's different levels of depth there for people who want to kind of go further into it. Is that something that you enjoy doing of kind of, yes, there's everything here on the surface it tells you what's going on and its entertainment, but if you kind of look further and deeper into it, there are other things there for you to, to find.

Erik Richter Strand: Absolutely. I'm glad you see it that way and that's intentional for sure. There are scenes in there that aren't necessarily telling you what to think or interpret where there's just, you're just watching someone being in a room or sitting on the side of a swimming pool or putting on makeup or just where you can project your own emotions or your own interpretations onto what you're watching.

And, erm, if I have an extra 10 minutes to film something, I'll always try to find a place to put the actor where I've got good light and I've got a good situation, and just try to film a situation where they are simply being themselves in a room.

Edith Bowman: Yeah. 

Erik Richter Strand: Because that comes in so extremely handy in situations where you, where you need that moment of reflection and where you need that moment of contrasting something that you just cut from.

You know, I'm really glad we did the swimming pool sequences, where we are underwater with Diana, where there's voiceover right at the beginning of the episode, when she talks about being in this ‘no woman's land’. And also the ensuing scene where she's in this slightly abstract dressing room with lots of mirrors going back a hundred mirrors, and then she's putting on makeup and thinking some of those scenes I'm very happy with because I feel like they say a thousand words without saying any.

Edith Bowman: Can we talk about Humayun Saeed, who plays Dr Hasnat Khan? A beautiful actor and a beautiful performance and this just kind of tender reaction to this woman who's, who's interested in him really.

Erik Richter Strand: Yeah. She makes, she doesn't hide it. 

Edith Bowman: No.

Erik Richter Strand: No. She comes right out and sort of says it. 

Edith Bowman: Yeah, totally. 

Erik Richter Strand: I didn't know Humayun Saeed until I started doing the casting for this episode, and I understood early on that he was a major star in Pakistan. He's also a producer, he owns his own production company. He's a, he's a major player.

Edith Bowman: Oh, wow.

Erik Richter Strand: And he's very famous. So I was very excited when I auditioned him and I saw exactly what you described, that vulnerability, that ability to just completely be blank in one moment, and then react with a very sort of finely tuned human vulnerability that comes across very beautifully as Hasnat Khan, because I think that is what Diana saw in Hasnat Khan. A real person, someone who didn't approach her as her Royal Highness, but someone who was simply just a man that she could talk to and who eventually fell in love with her, for who she was.

Edith Bowman: There's a lovely scene where she first sees him, and it's just Elizabeth's perception and tone. You gave her so much time to play it and react to it, and sometimes it's the hand over the mouth at times, and leans into things or an eye movement or the head dip. I wondered if there was a, a conversation about that as well.

You know, nothing's rushed with her and that really gives you a sense of, of kind of Diana's movements and her confidence, I think in a way at times.

Erik Richter Strand: Yeah. Elizabeth's sense of timing as an actor is really strong. This scene that you mentioned when they're at the hospital, a lot of her job is to listen, because Hasnat Khan comes in and he has this very slightly technical monologue, really, about the operation that just had to go through. So she's just watching him. So I really enjoy that camera move, where you start with the two of them, Diana and her friend Oonagh and as we realise that she's looking at him, we gently push in and remove Oonagh from the frame, and we end up in a closeup on just Diana who's looking sort of batting her eyelids as this handsome doctor. And I love that because it tells you everything you need to know, and then when he's delivered this quite tragic news at the end of which he says ‘Goodbye’. And she smiles at him in a way that's like, she's obviously.

Edith Bowman: Yeah.

Erik Richter Strand: Quite smitten with him. And I love the way she played that. And yeah, it's just about giving her time, and, but if you, if you look at that scene, there are hardly any cuts in it. On, on her performance we stay very much focused on what she delivered on the day. 

18:52

Annie Sulzberger: Hasnat Khan was a heart surgeon. He was born in Pakistan, but had trained all over, including Australia, and he, at this point in September 1995 is a surgeon at the Royal Brompton Hospital.

He's part of the team that performs a triple bypass on the husband of Diana's acupuncturist. As we know, by this point, Diana's friends are mostly people who help care for her. So, acupuncturists, spiritual advisors, things like that. There are complications and they have to sort of rush Joseph Toffolo, this husband, back into surgery.

And when he comes back in, Diana is there and Hasnat is filling Oonagh Toffolo, the wife in on what's gone on with her husband. And supposedly Diana just says, ‘isn't he drop dead gorgeous?’ And she becomes sort of infatuated from that moment.

And she starts hanging out at the Royal Brompton Hospital every day. And it’s in this period when she gets this reputation as an ambulance chaser in the news cause they don't know why she's there all the time. But she shows up at night when she doesn't have Royal duties of any kind. And she spends a lot of time at Joseph Toffolo’s recovery bedside, and then she starts going room to room and just saying like, ‘can I do anything?’

So this is all just to be near Hasnat. And again, a lot of people are rather taken with this, but also many are questioning ‘Why are you here? We haven't asked you to come in’ and she's just sort of by everyone's bedside to get more time with him. So finally, he gets the nerve to ask her out. It’s a bit of an odd first date, he asks her if she wants to come with him to his uncles’ house in Stratford-upon-Avon to pick up some books. She says yes and they start a relationship that lasts 18 months.

It's a very long time. She's very serious about him. I think she definitely falls in love. She goes out loads with disguises, wigs. They go to jazz clubs, to the pub and it becomes really clear to Hasnat that he can't live a life under that kind of public scrutiny. A lot of people know there's an inkling to what's going on, but they're really cautious about being seen together.

And it gets to the point where she's considering moving so they can have a life together. And he really thinks like the only place we can move where no one's gonna bother us is Pakistan. And she even goes to Pakistan, possibly without his knowledge, to meet his mum. Although in the end it was Diana who broke it off - this is according to Hasnat himself - fundamentally, you know, we think he just felt like ‘however much we love each other, is this really possible for us to pull off? Cuz I would like to lead a normal life where I can go into my hospital and not be hounded.’

He's very private. One of the only bits of information we had from him was the inquest testimony he gave in 2008 into the crash so he was called to testify just about the nature of their relationship. At that point, he said that they hadn't really talked seriously about marriage, but that she liked the idea and had wanted to have another child. We have to remember, she's only 36 when she dies so the chance of a second family is very real and that's one of the rare times he has said anything he's only ever come out when misreportings have taken place.

…..Princess Diana: What we do is entirely miraculous. I'm just a friendly Sloane Ranger.

If you’ve listened to this show before, you’ll know that I am obsessed with the costumes of The Crown. So I was delighted to sit down with Costume Designer Amy Roberts, and Associate Designer and head buyer Sidonie Roberts, to dive into the royal wardrobe for season five. 

Edith Bowman: Let’s talk a little bit about, specifically, you know designing the costumes for the season. Where did you start? You know, we talked quite a lot about colour palettes and that defining the period for the last season so what was the starting point for this season?

Amy Roberts: I think it's probably the same, the same impetus is there, isn't it Sid? 

Sidonie Roberts: Yeah. 

Amy Roberts: Obviously reading the brilliant scripts and then looking at what they actually wore, we get these mood boards up in our studio, then we know what they're looking like and their shapes. It's always a little bit difficult, I think when you've got a new group of actors.

Sidonie Roberts: Right. Yeah, Cause that was the difference this year.

Amy Roberts: Makes a big difference. 

Sidonie Roberts: Yeah, absolutely right. 

Amy Roberts: Kind of tonally where they're coming from. I think there's a melancholy about this season, so I suppose then that automatically leads you into a palette of slightly more subtle colours. 

Sidonie Roberts: Yeah. I think looking at the characters individually and then how they come together as a whole, but it's the individual kind of character and human that we do their journey separately.

Where are these kind of pointers where everybody knows what they wear, then? They in a way helped the palette because they were more subdued. So actually, this year doing that kind of mapping that journey and going, ‘where should we do a more similar interpretation of something that they wore?’ That kind of helps dictate that even further, I would say. Yeah.

Amy Roberts: And we always get together, I was thinking about this this morning, we get together for big sessions, we're doing it now aren't we for our final season. 

Sidonie Roberts: Yeah.

Amy Roberts:  Working on what we call the ‘Bibles’ and we look at each character's scenes and for us, the exciting thing is when you've got a group of them together. 

Sidonie Roberts: Yeah.

Amy Roberts:  And. Where can we accentuate that? And we have a lot of fun with the two sisters. We found that really exciting, didn't we with Imelda and Leslie, Margaret and Elizabeth. We had this extraordinary thing that happened last season, where Sid designed a range of prints. So, we used those prints, so there's a scene with the two sisters and they're actually in the same prints, but in slightly different colour ways. 

Edith Bowman: Oh wow. 

Sidonie Roberts: So, me and Rachel Taylor, who actually works in the workroom, we had lockdown. So, we thought, what else, what can we do? So we designed a collection of fabrics. 

Edith Bowman: Amazing.

Sidonie Roberts: And, and then kind of originally for us. And then we..

Amy Roberts: And I said, ‘no, no me, me’, us ‘The Crown’

Sidonie Roberts: Amy went, ‘what about ‘The Crown’? Please. So we did, and one of them, this one in particular that Amy's talking about is ‘Quinces’.

Amy Roberts: Autumnal.

Sidonie Roberts: Yeah, absolutely. And so, Queen wears one and it's on like a cotton jacquard and then Margaret's one is on silk and it's a pussy bow, and it's, it's that what we know of Margaret and it's olive greens and it's richer and it's, and then Queen wears a slightly more demure version of that print in different colours that go with her palette.

Amy Roberts: I think we sort of suggest it be nice to have a chair as well. But I think I really.

Sidonie Roberts: Oh, we always wanted to get that in there, cushions.

Edith Bowman: Cushions chairs.

Sidonie Roberts: Season three, we had this incredible upholstery fabric that we ended up making Margaret a dress in. And you can use it on both sides, and one was blue with brown on the flowers and the other way was brown with blue flowers.

Amy Roberts: Oh, that was the Helena Bonham-Carter season, wasn’t it?

Sidonie Roberts: And we thought couldn't she have like a little poof that she puts her legs up on in the other way of the fabric?

Amy Roberts: The amount of freedom on this program, and creative freedom is quite phenomenal really. I must remember that on a bad day, when I'm shouting at Michael Casey.

Amy Roberts: You know what I think with Diana, and what I always think was the biggest – ‘cause basically Sid did Diana, I had very little to do with Diana - was the story Peter's telling is not a public Diana is it? What have you got? Maybe three. Oh, okay. The hospital bits, but very, very few public views of Diana. 

Edith Bowman: Yeah. 

Amy Roberts: So it's all her in her Kensington Palace apartment lurking about it's all, cloak and dagger this one, isn't it, you know, she's paranoid. She's…and it was like over to you, Sid, where you had to find, ‘what is she gonna be lurking about her flat in?’

Edith Bowman:. Yeah. And you're quite young as well Sid. So in terms of, that's really interesting that you did Diana.

Sidonie Roberts: Yeah. 

Edith Bowman: ‘Cause you've got less of…

Sidonie Roberts:  A conscious…

Edith Bowman: A conscious kind of memory of…

Sidonie Roberts:  Yeah. 

Edith Bowman: Of her.

Amy Roberts:  Which I think makes it really healthy and fresh. Don’t you?

Sidonie Roberts: I do wonder, I was gonna say, I do wonder if that's healthier. I think me not knowing it in a kind of conscious memory, I wasn't, I mean, I was alive when she died, but I wasn't alive to know kind of what she was wearing and stuff. I think that that probably is an advantage.

Amy Roberts:  Much better. 

Sidonie Roberts:  Yeah. It means that I can just look at reference images and, and, and think about her slightly differently, I think.

Edith Bowman: Yeah. 

Sidonie Roberts:  And also, as Amy was saying, it's like, what, what is her equivalent of a tracksuit? What's her equivalent of something that me and you would probably lounge about at home in? What is that for her? So I think getting to do that was really exciting because you don't see that version of her that much, other than when she did it herself.

Edith Bowman: Were there pieces that were, or things that were almost a constant for Elizabeth and for your, your version of Diana that…?

Sidonie Roberts: I think privately, yes. There were her security blankets, which for her became her Harvard jumpers and her Virgin Atlantic. So, we chose to actually have them in private spaces as well though, we know them very publicly. 

Edith Bowman: Yeah.

Sidonie Roberts: When we were speaking earlier about what's her version of a tracksuit and it's those. And the sleeveless cashmere polo necks.

Edith Bowman: Yeah.

Sidonie Roberts:  But the hospital. Yeah, that was interesting, ‘cause there's a real kind of contrast between what's happening for her and how we costume her privately and there, where she's still making an effort and she says, always especially in a hospital, we read didn't we, that she, when she was doing anything like that, she would dress in bright colours that was a very conscious choice for her when she's around children or people that aren't very well, to make yourself seen and visible to people. But what was interesting about that is not all those hospital scenes were public, so in the story, it's that she goes, and there's no press. So we had a conversation actually with Erik, the director of that, because in those moments, we could have actually put her in slightly more private…

Edith Bowman: Yeah.

Sidonie Roberts: Outfits. But it felt important to tell that story. And also to have that contrast between the public and the private and her still making an effort for these people and cheering them up.

Hasnat Khan: You can't go to the cinema. You are the most recognizable woman in the world. It would cause a public disorder.

Princess Diana: Trust me. I have done it before.

Edith Bowman: It’s great in Episode 7, because there's real contrast to Diana's image, you know, we have that public facing side, we have those moments. But, we also have private and then we have Diana in disguise.

Sidonie Roberts: Right, the cloaks and daggers. Yeah. 

Edith Bowman: Was that kind of, was that fun to play with, with Elizabeth in terms of what would the character choose to…

Sidonie Roberts: Yeah. 

Edith Bowman: Have as her disguise? 

Amy Roberts: How we work is I'll say, ‘this is how I see this story.’ This is like, and I always say, ‘oh, it's like a detective novel this bit’. And that gets us going, doesn't it.

Sidonie Roberts: Yeah. 

Amy Roberts:  And then you run with that. 

Sidonie Roberts: Yeah.

Amy Roberts:  The hats and the sunglasses, and the coats. 

Sidonie Roberts: Yeah. So she did wear these big coats, and so we thought we would use those in all of these moments. So dark colours, big coats, they like coats. So it's like cloaks and daggers. Absolutely, it was kind of literal in that sense. 

Edith Bowman: And wigs.

Sidonie Roberts: Yeah. Wigs.

Edith Bowman: The black wig, the black bob at the cinema. 

Sidonie Roberts: Yeah. Like what do you do to disguise yourself? Also, what I think is always very funny about celebrities is when they try and disguise themselves it sometimes draws more attention to them. But in this sense, I think we just went yeah, dark didn't we? With Bashir as well. 

Edith Bowman: What about the Dior handbag? 

Sidonie Roberts: The Dior handbag, is the Dior handbag.

Amy Roberts:  Thank you Dior. 

Edith Bowman: But it’s like, it's like a sword. It's like a shield. 

Sidonie Roberts: Yeah. But, but that's it again It's a coat, isn't it? Like, it's, it's an outerwear that you can put on.

Amy Roberts:  Yeah.

Sidonie Roberts: The decision to keep her in that red puffer jacket when she goes and sees her brother. 

Edith Bowman: Yeah. 

Sidonie Roberts: Which feels completely, um, barmy to have that in that apartment. And then she's got that red coat on, but again, that's her shield. 

Edith Bowman: Well, it says so much because it's kind of like, ‘I'm not staying.’

Sidonie Roberts: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And the hat. At this point, she's so wildly hounded by paparazzi, so it's anything that she can do,shades… I don't think it's even any more about disguising yourself so you don't know it's her, which in the cinema it was ‘cause she went one step further and had a wig on. But I think in terms of ‘paps’, it's just anything that means they're not gonna see her vulnerably at this point. Right, rather than going, ‘oh, it's not Diana. Look at me. It's not Diana. It's just going. ‘You get to see less of me. This is all I'm gonna give you. I'm putting shades on. So you don't know what my eyes are saying, putting a hat on’. So I think it's for her less about making herself look less like Diana, but more about, ‘okay.You're gonna hound me anyway. So I'm only gonna give you this much.’

Edith Bowman: I think that the obvious conversations for people are around the females, in the show, you know, because it's such an obvious visual thing, but with the male costumes and clothes, they're more subtle, but they are still driving the narrative and telling us things about those characters. I mean, Prince Philip…

Amy Roberts: I just wanted him to look as he did, which was always spot on to the point where you didn't, you don't notice it. You know, that they're the, like the longer line of the jacket. It's always very, you know, there's men that are completely at ease with themselves, they just put it on and go, don't think about it. I think that, I always felt that. I mean, Philip was like sensational, I think.

Sidonie Roberts: Well, I think that's lovely what you just said ‘spot on so you don't notice it’ because that's exactly what it feels. 

Amy Roberts: You know, we're all talking about our designs and the costumes and the fabrics. There are also major pluses when we are dealing with a working class character. And that we both believe is as paramount to get that right as it is to get the Queen right, isn't it? Or Diana and the thrill of getting that right.

Sidonie Roberts: Cause obviously we've done it for a long time now, that’s exciting when, with what you were saying also about Diana, when something is slightly unexpected, or something comes into ‘The Crown’ that is exciting to do because it looks at kind of the society at the time and politics and all of that. And when that's brought in it's these little vignettes of something just unexpected coming in. 

Amy Roberts: And it pushes you in a different way. Yeah. You know, it's all glam and handbags…

Sidonie Roberts: Yeah. And in a way, again, that's with Diana.

Amy Roberts: You can’t take your your eye off the ball can you.

Sidonie Roberts: And with Diana, I think what's so exciting about this season and the one we are doing now, is it's less of those frocks or those suits, the Chanel suits, the Givenchy suits. It's that loungewear.

Edith Bowman:  Yeah. 

Sidonie Roberts: And I think that's why it's come back in fashion because it is just really cool. Somebody else asked me, why do we think she's such a fashion icon? Why does, why has that led through? And I think it's ‘cause something that happened where she got her own personal identity, is she kind of oscillates between worlds. She's both elegant, she's sexy, she's cool. She enables herself to be different versions. And I think that's really important for young women to, well women in general, but young women today, to be able to not just be pigeonholed into one style, one idea of what a woman should be, but you can be multiple things. You can have, yeah, multiple versions of yourself and, and express that in clothes. 

You’ve already heard a conversation I had with Elizabeth Debicki about taking on the role of Diana in this season. And I was thrilled to catch up with Elizabeth again once everything was finished - and having spoken to Sid and Amy - I wanted to get Elizabeth’s perspective on working with them and taking on Diana’s iconic style. 

Elizabeth Debicki: From the second that we started working together, I knew we were, we were both Sid and I were both really aiming for the same thing, which was the thing that we loved so much about. Diana was the fact that, and the thing that I think makes her so iconic is that, and, and, and that women love so much about the way she dressed in her wardrobe was that you always got a sense that she made the decisions herself and that's, what's so vivid and sexy and empowering and great.

And so Sid and I were always really drawn to the outfits that sort of no one else ever could pull off and no one ever had tried. And, you know, I, I, I remember saying to Sid really early on, ‘I just love Everything. I just love the sweatpants and the cowboy boots. We have to get to’ and she was like, ‘that's, that's all I really care about’ you know.

And then I think what's funny about iconic Diana outfits is it's often when that spillover happens in public and we just loved it so much, you know? When you, you got the sense that she just woke up and she's like, ‘screw it, I'm wearing this to school.’

Edith Bowman: Yeah. Yeah, totally. 

Elizabeth Debicki: And, and that's the stuff that we love, and I think it's good it gets recreated so much. 

Edith Bowman: Even if you look at trends now as well, it's almost a lot of it's coming full circle, like the, the, um, the cycling shorts and the oversized blazers.

Elizabeth Debicki: Oh the cycling shorts that's one thing I can't do.

Edith Bowman: Sweatpants and cowboy boots Yes. Yes.

Elizabeth Debicki:  Oh, yeah, yeah. 

Edith Bowman: Cycling shorts no. Okay. 

Elizabeth Debicki: Oh, we had a pair of salmon cycling shorts that used to just stare at me on the, on the rack every time I went into the fitting and Sid would just hold them up like ‘one day, you know’, because I was not fulfilling any kind of regular training schedule due to my total exhaustion length of time. I used to just look at 'em and think, ‘oh my God, one day, I'm gonna have to put those on’. And then God, or the universe, something, did not want me to wear them because it was the one day we had that insane storm, Do you remember we had that insane storm? And that was the day I was supposed to wear them.

And then they were like, ‘listen’, we got this big email, like sent out to everyone, Like ‘we can't do today, but everybody stay inside.’ And all, like I was thinking about was a salmon cycling shorts. I thought, oh my God, thank God I was saved.

Edith Bowman: Apart from the err sweats and cowboy boots.

Elizabeth Debicki: Yeah. 

Edith Bowman: Favourite outfit?

Elizabeth Debicki:  Well, Sweats and cowboy boots, but also ‘revenge dress’.

Edith Bowman: Yes.

Elizabeth Debicki:  ‘Revenge dress’. 

Edith Bowman: And the jewellery.

Elizabeth Debicki:  ‘Revenge dress’ was the whole thing for me. 

Edith Bowman: Yeah?

Elizabeth Debicki:  Well, it was very, it was sort of very kind of surreal ‘cause we were also there, you know, it, that really kind of affected me quite deeply in the aftermath. Even just to see that dress on a hanger because there's so much attached to it. It's become this real symbol of you know, I think for women, that's a really important dress. Actually, when I got the role, I remember so many people saying, ‘congratulations, revenge dress, exclamation, exclamation’. You know, I was like, ‘really oh my God, you know, I didn't know you knew that much about Princess Diana’ but, yeah, it's sort of iconic for people. I guess, because it symbolised what we like to think it symbolised was I guess, a sort of Phoenix rising out of scrappy, painful ashes you know?

Edith Bowman: By the time we get to episode seven, ‘No Woman's Land’ she's been on a, a huge journey, even, you know, in this season up to that point. Where would you say we find Diana in this episode?

Elizabeth Debicki: The way I always felt playing it and reading her was that she's very suspended, trapped in a way between two, almost like timelines or realities. There's a sort of a past life and incarnation of herself, which was once upon a time full of assumptions that this was how you are, and this is how you behave, and this is what you adhere to and these are the rules, and this is what makes sense, this is what we're collectively aiming for. And then that is in the process of being dismantled and sort of shattered. And then, I always felt that when you are in those places in your life, there has to be a degree of hope that you are moving towards something that feels more authentically yourself, or that has more joy in it, or is, has a kind of freedom in it. But she's not there yet. 

Edith Bowman: It's that sort of thing where we get a slight sort of…a whisper of kind of what her life could have been in a way, you know, in terms of she's, I don’t know, in a way seeking that perfect life that she wanted, that she saw in her eyes of family and her kids. I don't know, there's, there's always this sadness there in a way as well. And she starts to, you just there's paranoia starts to kind of bubble around finding those people in her life that she can trust, finding those people that she can confide in. And it's really reiterated within the, the show. I think of how isolated she was, how lonely she was in terms of, there are very few of those people around and finding that as a performance must have been hard and exhausting, I imagine, as well.

Elizabeth Debicki: Yeah, it was, it was a very, I guess it sounds simplistic, but very lonely place to exist in psychologically portraying this moment in her life as Peter has written it. And I think like you said, you know, in order to be a human being that is capable of sort of feeling secure and feeling peaceful and, and being open hearted and you need trust in your life that, you know, it's, it's something we all know and acknowledge. 

But I feel like the story we told was a sense of, of it being something coming to get her, you know, a toppling of something because, sort of status quo had been breached and she felt that they really saw her as a problem.

And I think that when you internalise that, the next step onwards is that you then feel like you should be punished somehow. 

Edith Bowman: Yeah. 

Elizabeth Debicki: Or something's sort of gonna come for you, you know.

Edith Bowman: Come after you, yeah. 

Elizabeth Debicki: I think it makes sense when you think of those sort of psychological steps that that's where you end up in your head, you know, I, I, I don't know about you, but sometimes in life, when you're experiencing anxiety, there can be that sense of something's wrong. It's sort of an unnameable wrong and you, and you look to locate it somewhere in your life, you know, and I, I think that that's sort of what was happening. 

But then I think it's also important to remember that, you know, when you live your life in the public eye in such an extreme way, feeling encroached upon and feeling invaded is already a part of your psychological existence. And then I also think the thing that Peter's written in those moments with Diana that is so sad, I think, and was that you stopped trusting yourself and knowing what's real too. 

Edith Bowman: Yeah. 

Elizabeth Debicki: And that I think is what made it such a lonely place to play because that's a real kind of, yeah, whirlwind sort of destructive feeling of, of really not knowing what's real anymore. And, and knowing that, you know, something and everybody around you telling you that you are wrong, you know, that's…

Edith Bowman:  Yeah. 

Elizabeth Debicki: Obviously very dismantling.

Edith Bowman: You watch the show as well, and because you know the outcome of so many of these situations and with the ‘Panorama’ interview, you get so angry about it, about the manipulation that was put into, towards her agreeing to do it and particularly in hindsight, what we know now with, with events that have unfolded over the last year or so as well, makes me even angrier. What do you think were the reasons - from Peter's Diana - of agreeing to do it? Why do you think she did it? 

Elizabeth Debicki: I think in our telling it's a kind of battlefield, the way that Peter's written it, it really is a sort of media battlefield.

The desire to sort of just control that for a second and tell people how difficult things have been. 

Edith Bowman: Yeah. 

Elizabeth Debicki: In the hope that there may be a sort of shift of empathy that would allow her to sort of proceed with, with more freedom really.

Edith Bowman: Yeah. We know the, the kind of romantic nature of her and we get a real kind of lovely glimpse of, her dating, you know, kind of putting herself out there and having the confidence to just go ‘Let's go to the cinema!’, you know? That kind of thing. And it's a really nice side and I'm really glad that Peter's chosen to show that side of her, you know, it's really important that we have light and shade with her, particularly because we know the outcome of this real character, but to show these kind of little moments of her being allowed to be normal. Was that important for you to have those moments?

Elizabeth Debicki: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it was also important for me as an actor to sort of have moments where you can really have levity. My theory is that there was just a tremendously good sense of humour in that human and that she was really funny and silly, and the kind of person you absolutely, I always say this, you would absolutely want to hang out, you know? Have over for dinner and just bring a kind of real sense of like play. 

Edith Bowman: Yeah. 

Elizabeth Debicki: And so I looked for that as much as I could, I think, and then there were these outright moments where that could exist. Yeah. I just loved, I loved playing that. 

Edith Bowman: I love that idea of going to the cinema in fancy dress, or not in fancy dress, but in disguise.

Elizabeth Debicki: Which apparently she did do. I think there was a story of her going to Ronnie Scott's in a wig. 

Edith Bowman: It's great.

Elizabeth Debicki:  And sort of, and sometimes going to Tesco's or I dunno if she went to Tescos acually… Sainsbury’s, Waitrose in a wig..

Edith Bowman: Waitrose in a wig.

Elizabeth Debicki:  Yeah. M&S

Edith Bowman: Lidl’s…

Edith Bowman: . I'm Edith Bowman and my special thanks to our guests on this episode, Elizabeth Debicki, Erik Richter Strand, Annie Sulzberger, Amy Roberts and Sidonie Roberts. 'The Crown: The Official Podcast' is produced by Netflix and Somethin' Else, in association with Left Bank Pictures. 

Join us next time, when we go behind the scenes of episode eight of season five, called ‘Gunpowder'.

Monarchy and media collide when bosses at the BBC wrestle with the ethics and politics of Martin Bashir’s royal Panorama scoop, as he doubles down on his deception to secure Diana’s trust. But will the explosive broadcast be worth the risk?

Birt: All right. Give me a day or two. I need to think about it. 

Hewlett: About what?

Birt: About the ethics I've given now a national platform to someone with such a personal agenda.