Elizabeth Debicki talks 'responsibility' of depicting Princess Diana's final days on 'The Crown'
The actress also shared her own memory of learning of Diana's death.
Elizabeth Debicki is opening up about the "immense responsibility" she said she feels playing the late Princess Diana on "The Crown."
The show's sixth and final season will depict the icon's final days before her tragic death in August 1997, as evidenced by the trailer for the season's first part, debuting Nov. 16.
Debicki told "Entertainment Tonight" that she and everyone involved with the show felt "an immense, immense responsibility" to get things right, adding that "it was something that we thought about, that we carried with us, that woke us up in the night."
"We tried our very best to do [Diana's story] properly," she declared.
Debicki, who earned an Emmy nomination for playing Diana during season five of "The Crown," called the opportunity to play the late princess "a very difficult and also very beautiful thing to be asked to do as an actor."
"As much as it was very harrowing … there was a sort of grace to it at the same time," she said.
The "Widows" actress also reflected on her own memory of Diana's shocking death, which occurred when Debicki was a little girl growing up in Australia.
"I remember my mother's reaction very, very strongly. I remember sitting on the floor of our living room and my mother was watching the funeral procession, and she was weeping," Debicki told Deadline. "I didn't understand what was going on, and she explained to me who this person was."
Debicki continued, "It's actually quite a strong core memory in a way, so I learned a lot and I did a lot of research when I was approaching this role, but I suppose knowing that this woman influenced my mother, a woman in Australia in the suburbs, so deeply is something that was already embedded into my understanding of the story."
"The Crown" season six, part one debuts Nov. 16 on Netflix, with part two premiering on Dec. 14.
