The Crown director explains decision to omit filmed Diana death scenes
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The Crown series 6 director Christian Schwochow has explained why some Princess Diana death scenes were filmed for the show, but won't be included.
Schwochow is directing episodes 2, 3 and 4 of the upcoming sixth season, which cover the fatal crash and the aftermath.
It was already reported that the crash itself would not be shown, and Schwochow reiterated this. He also confirmed that filmed scenes of Diana in the morgue will not be included in the episodes, and were in fact never intended to be.
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"We did film Diana, but very respectfully — not in a big close-up," he told Deadline.
"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."
It was explained that the reason the scene was filmed, with Elizabeth Debicki as Diana rather than a stand-in, was to anchor Dominic West's performance as Charles, which Schwochow described as full of "raw emotions".
"Elizabeth was there to see Dominic's performance in the hospital, so she knows exactly how raw he was," he said.
"I always encourage the actors to go deeper into the emotion," Schwochow added. "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."
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The director further confirmed that there are scenes where Charles and Imelda Staunton's Queen Elizabeth imagine having a conversation with Diana after her death, while Salim Daw's Mohamed Al-Fayed does the same with Khalid Abdulla's Dodi.
"Let's call Diana not a ghost," he insisted. "It's like a conversation that Charles would probably love to have in that moment, and the same with the Queen."
The Crown seasons 1-5 are streaming on Netflix, with season 6 part 1 premiering on November 16 and season 6 part 2 following on December 14.
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