Emma Corrin (‘The Crown’) on playing Diana: ‘She was so intensely vulnerable’ [EXCLUSIVE VIDEO INTERVIEW]
“I certainly felt that my brain was so populated with all these images of her and stories of her,” reveals Emma Corrin about her role as Princess Diana in “The Crown” for its fourth season, which released last fall and contends now for the 2021 Emmy Awards this summer. “I knew that the challenge for me would be to leave behind every preconception I had of Diana and make my own way with it and to really work from the inside out,” continues the actress to Gold Derby (watch above). “It was actually when I let all of that go,” says Corrin about how she settled on her portrayal of the late real-life figure.
“I took her from 16 to 28 and I was like, ‘Wow, that’s a lot of years.’ That’s a big arc to take her on,” reflects the breakthrough star. She reveals about crafting the acclaimed and anticipated performance, “I focused very much on this fine line — this balance — this line that she toed all the time between vulnerability and strength. She was so intensely vulnerable the whole time, but weirdly, there are these moments that you see her fighting through where she finds strength in that.” Corrin concludes, “That was really what I harnessed and tried to work with.”
Corrin won both the Golden Globe and Critics Choice Awards for Best Drama Actress earlier this year, helping her on her path to a potential first Emmy nomination in the equivalent category (our interview was recorded before those two victories). The last Emmy went to Zendaya, who is ineligible to repeat for “Euphoria” this season. If nominated, one episode will represent Corrin’s work for judging consideration on the academy website, but Corrin was not sure what her best bet would be to submit at the time of our interview, weighing the episode that Netflix is pushing for Best Drama Directing versus something from later in the season with more confrontational material opposite Josh O’Connor as her on-screen husband.
She muses, “I loved episode three, working with Ben Caron and ‘Fairytale’ really stands alone, almost like a little film in my mind — in both of our minds when we were filming it because it’s really just in Diana’s head and there’s something so poignant there, but then of course, you lose all the intensity with her and Charles.”
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