Netflix series The Crown season 5 has debuted on the giant on November 9, 2022 and it has been in the headlines since its release.
The actors Dominic West and Olivia Williams, who played the roles of the then Prince Charles and his love interest who later became his wife Camilla Parker in the royal series, opened up to TODAY about being protective of the royals they portrayed in the fifth season.
Dominic West and Olivia Williams believed The Crown shows the “humanity behind the icons.”
The new season has depicted just how Charles and the late Princess Diana's marriage crumbled publicly, due to scandals like Camillagate (an intimate phone call between Charles and Camilla leaked in 1993) and Diana's tell-all biography in 1992.
Netizens have been criticizing the portrayal of Charles and Camilla, claiming that the series has given them a more favorable light than Diana.
West and Williams told TODAY via Zoom about the factor that convinced them to do the roles was that the show depicted what Charles and Camilla were going through.
According to Penny Junor’s biography of Camilla, The Duchess: The Untold Story, Charles and Camilla met around 1970 and fell in love in 1971.
As per Jonathan Dimbleby’s authorized biography of Charles, they both came into relationship again in 1986 after unsuccessful marriages with other people.
“My memories of that time were (questioning) whether they were the villains in the piece, really,” West said.
He went on saying “They were the people who’d destroyed this great fairy tale and the most famous wedding of all time and ended in divorce. And these were the people we were going to blame for it, and the media and the press were blaming them for it.”
The 53-year-old actor emphasized that in the forthcoming season viewers “can see where (Charles and Camilla) were coming from.”
“We can see the tragedy for them, really that thank God has worked out OK for them” West added of the couple who has been married for 17 years.
“And I think that’s what The Crown does best is it "shows us the humanity behind the icons.” He expressed.
Olivia William while talking about Camilla’s side of the story with Today, “I think very few people realized that Camilla had a dreadful time at that time as well. The feeling about her was that she was the cause of the divorce.”
She continued, “Whereas, in fact, she really was just another victim of an appalling situation. And when Charles revealed their affair on his television interview that she was another divorce that happened and she was dropped into a sort of no man’s land.”
She went on saying, “But she’s emerged from this as this woman who has never looked for vengeance or never been vindictive. There’s never been a book, ‘Camilla: Her Story.’ And actually, she’s generous and forgiving,” while seemingly referring to Diana's biography, Diana: Her True Story, written by Andrew Morton with the assistance of the late royal.
“And the thing that was a real clue for us into their relationship: Whenever you see them together at a public event, they seem to be laughing at some kind of private joke between them or being deeply supportive of each other, and that makes her such an extraordinary personality. I was very happy to get the chance to play her.”
Reflecting back to West portrayal of Charles in the show he told Today, it was “a new experience” as an actor and “totally” felt protected of current King Charles III as he filmed Season Five and Six.
“You always feel, I think, for your character. You feel slightly protective and you give them the benefit of the doubt.”
He further expressed, “And I think with this character more than any, I think, because he’s a man who’s suffered intense scrutiny and criticism all his life and has done, despite of that, an enormous amount of good and is devoted a life that could have been, as he says in the show, ‘spent through dissipation’ and boozing, having a good time, which some of his predecessors did, and I certainly would have done.”
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