The Crown director has opened up about how they sensitively handle Princess Diana's death, in the upcoming sixth season of the hit Netflix show.
The sixth and final season of The Crown lands on the streaming service next month, and covers events for the Royal family which take place between 1997 through to 2005. In that time, Prince Charles and Camilla Parker-Bowles' begin their relationship, while Princess Diana's romance with Dodi Fayed unfolds.
The series will cover the couple's Mediterranean holidays, as well as their tragic deaths in a car crash in Paris on 31st August 1997. Creators previously confirmed they won't show the crash itself, instead focussing on the impact it had on the world and royal family.
Now, director Christian Schwochow, has shared a little more detail, insisting that while Elizabeth Debicki did film some scenes as Diana in a morgue, viewers won't see anything in detail.
"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."
The director also explained how, in season six, viewers do not hear the actual words Queen Elizabeth II's deputy private secretary Robin Janvrin used to share news of Diana's death, or how Charles told their sons, William and Harry.
"We don’t have to see and hear that three or four times," Schwochow added. “We try to give all the characters their private space with their grief and sadness to not exploit these emotions too much."
The Crown season six part one lands on Netflix on 16 November 2023, and the remaining six episodes on 14 December 2023.
