While The Crown is no stranger to the Emmys — it has, to date, 21 wins (including best drama series in 2021) and 69 nominations — it was only recognized in one acting category for its fifth season: supporting actress in a drama, for the indomitable Elizabeth Debicki’s portrayal of Princess Diana. Over the course of a conversation with The Hollywood Reporter (which took place on July 12, two days ahead of the SAG-AFTRA strike), Debicki, who’s originally from Australia, explains how her initial involvement with The Crown began long before the role of Diana was even being cast; how coming up in Australia, she’s seen some very familiar faces on the awards circuit this year; and what the daunting process of transforming into one of global culture’s most recognizable, adored figure actually looked like.
Can you tell me a bit about where you were when you received the news of your nomination?
I’m in Australia, visiting my family. And I was asleep. Before going to bed, I said to my family, “What should I do?” I was so jet-lagged, because I just flew back from Paris Fashion Week, and I couldn’t keep my eyes open. So I went to sleep, [after] I had a whole bunch of family and people around for dinner last night. And actually, my little sister, she crept in this morning, just before she went to work, and said “You [got nominated] for an Emmy,” and she snuck out. That’s actually the nicest way ever to be told that you’ve been nominated for an Emmy, to have your little sister sneak into your room.
It’s really new to me, this sort of layer of being in this industry. And it’s very exciting. You don’t really know how to think about it — obviously, you’d really like it to happen, but you do that thing of “Well, you know, you’ve done your best. We’ll see.”
What was the audition process like?
I had an interesting introduction to [the project], which led to quite a long road of processing doing the part. I auditioned for a small role in season two. I’ll never tell anyone what the role is, because obviously I didn’t get it, but also the person who did it was so good. The Crown has these amazing smaller parts that are in, like, one or two episodes. So, I had literally just seen season one, because it aired a week or two before. I was in the U.K., doing a play in London. They asked me to come and read, and it was just that thing where your agents suggest, even if you don’t think you’re right for the thing, it’s always a good idea to do some work in front of people. So I went in and read this part, and I think the people in that audition actually saw the potential for me to play Diana way back then, and they reached out to my reps. I thought, “Well, there’s no way — years will pass — that they’ll still be in that line of thinking.” But in fact, they were.
Then eventually, at the very beginning of 2020, I went and sat down with Peter [Morgan, creator and showrunner], and Suzanne Mackie, one of our producers, and they formally asked me to do the part. Then, of course, the world just ground to a halt, and we had that very strange pandemic experience that pushed shooting for about a year. I had this phenomenally long amount of time to do research. For me, how to pace through that time that I suddenly found I had, and how to research that part, and where to put my energy, it was just a really interesting psychological experiment. It was really unusual. I can’t imagine that ever happening again in my career.
What were the biggest challenges in taking on the role of Diana?
The things that were most overwhelming about approaching it were more conceptual than any kind of physical challenges, if that makes sense. Which, I think, is the case for a lot of acting — you have to begin it to get out of your own way. Until you put your hands on it, it can feel very overwhelming. I guess the baseline of that fear was just me loving and admiring the real-life person, and what she became symbolically, understanding the impact in our collective consciousness, in our history. That’s an enormous, pretty epic scope of impact, and how on earth do you access that, play that, become that?
In the end, it was almost like the most basic acting rules that you learn when you’re in school and you’re doing Shakespeare: You cannot play Lear, others make you Lear. It was a lot of returning to a skeletal framework of what [I] know I can use. If I ever spiraled off in one direction, I would really pull myself back and say, “No, you know how to do this. Just simplify — just do what you always have done as an actor.” When I got a handle on the psychological stuff, then I started working with people [like a] movement coach … Dialect was really important to me, a very strong, muscular blueprint. At the very least, I can fall back on that, if day one is very overwhelming. Having also watched The Crown, what I enjoyed about it as an audience so much was knowing that the actors were offering never mimicry, [but rather] an essence of a person.
Are there other nominations, shows or performances this year that have really impacted you?
Well, The Crown — I’ve lived in that show for more than two years. As actors on that show, we can only do so much in the work without the costume department, or hair and makeup. The whole thing was to work symbiotically. And also the people who come on and do these remarkable smaller parts on The Crown — like Prasanna [Puwanarajah], who plays Martin Bashir — did the most remarkable job. What I was able to do as an actor during that season was because of people like Prasanna who gave me this remarkable person to play off of. In terms of good work that I’ve seen this year on TV, it’s kind of phenomenal.
I don’t usually get to watch a lot of TV, which it’s so ironic because we work in TV and we don’t have any time to watch TV, but I watched things that I just could not get enough of. Succession is an insanely wonderful show, and Sarah Snook … We’re both Australian, and we’ve known each other since we were really young. We used to audition with each other, and it always used to be Snook and I, down to the last two for whatever role. If she wasn’t in the waiting room when I walked in to do my audition, she’d be there when I came out. We were always like, “Hey, how are you?” I was just astonished by her work. I’m so proud of her. And that whole cast just absolutely broke my heart. Obviously, White Lotus was a revelation, and Beef was incredible. It’s a massive smorgasbord of exceptionally talented people making things.
Interview edited for length and clarity.
