Elizabeth Debicki Describes How She Nailed Portrayal of Princess Diana in ‘The Crown’: ‘Osmosis’

Elizabeth Debicki’s captivating portrayal of Princess Diana in season 6 of The Crown earned her a well-deserved Golden Globe Award on January 7. The Australian actress told Closer and other reporters in the pressroom that the process of transforming herself into the People’s Princess took a lot of hard work and “osmosis.”

“I’m not a mother, and certainly not a member of the royal family, but the thing that struck with me the most when I did my research and started to play this part as well was the combination of the sort of isolation and emergence from it; the desire to recreate the self and to control the narrative of one’s life,” Elizabeth, 33, reflected.

She continued, “I’ve learned a lot from playing this part, the courage that it takes and the inherent beauty in life,” adding, “I just think it was such a lumination that came from that desire to bust through that isolation to something beautiful and to try and reach people, see people and be seen.”

In order to prepare for the role, which she took over from Emma Corrin in season 5, the Emmy nominee did a “tremendous amount of research.” For her, nailing Diana’s “mannerisms” in each episode was extremely important.

“I spent a lot of time watching and I spent a lot of time with the dialect coach and that was amazing to have when you had someone be there in such a vulnerable state,” she added.

Elizabeth faced stiff competition in the Best Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role on Television category, with the likes of Abby Elliott, Christina Ricci, J. Smith-Cameron, Meryl Streep and Hannah Waddingham.

“Thank you to the creatives of the show for trusting me with this part, to our cast and crew, to my beautiful pretend children, who I just adore,” she told the audience while accepting the award.

In season 6 of the drama series, viewers saw Diana meet her tragic fate with boyfriend Dodi Fayed in a 1997 car accident in Paris. Khalid Abdalla, who portrayed Dodi, previously revealed how he prepared for the role.

“One of the big things I did for season 6 — and I don’t know why no one’s done this as far as I know — is that I gathered as many of the photos with the research team as I could of Dodi and Diana and I put them in chronological order,” he told The Hollywood Reporter in November 2023. “And when you put them in chronological order, it tells a story. And you’re kind of like, ‘Ah, that’s the moment when things shifted.’ You also begin to feel the hounding from the media, and you begin to feel all of these things.”