‘The Crown’: Elizabeth Debicki on Painful Princess Diana Moments (Exclusive)

“The Crown” star Elizabeth Debicki spoke to “Extra’s” Terri Seymour on the red carpet in L.A. to celebrate the show’s final season, a night she called “surreal” after the SAG-AFTRA strike.

Elizabeth shared, “I can’t even believe that we are here. Khalid [Abdalla] and I were in London two days ago on the phone saying, ‘Are we going to be watching it on the couch in our pajamas?’ Now we’re here.”

She went on, “It feels really important to be here to mark it. It was an incredible job for me and it was an incredible journey creatively... I’m really happy that we can speak to it and celebrate it.”

The season centers on Diana’s romance with Dodi Al Fayed, played by Abdalla, and their fatal car accident inside a Paris tunnel.

Elizabeth opened up about reimagining the tragic moments from the end of Princess Diana’s life, and how important it was to her that it was done respectfully.

Debicki said of filming those scenes, “It's very difficult. It's very painful. It lives in your body for a long time. I think we felt it was a tremendous responsibility, and I think I knew that making it, but it probably felt it the most sort of amplified version of that when I watched it and realized what we’ve done and how important it was that we did it as seriously as we did. It is a thing of monumental international grief, isn’t it? So it is important that you give it everything you have to tell that story.”

As for doing it respectfully, she said, “It was the most important thing.”

Terri asked if it is hard to play a real person who was so loved and adored. “It is a huge responsibility and I love and adore her, too, just as a normal person, sort of on the other side of this equation, so it has been a wild ride.”