Dominic West has admitted he’s said farewell to his hopes of ever receiving any honours from the Royal Family following his performance in The Crown.
The British actor portrays a younger King Charles in the final two seasons of the award-winning Netflix drama, which mostly take place in the 1990s.
During a recent interview on BBC Radio 5 Live, the Bafta winner was asked about the downsides of portraying the monarch on screen, to which he commented: “I suppose having to forgo the British Empire Medal that I might have got for services to acting.
“It was alright for [Jonathan Pryce, who plays his on-screen father Prince Philip in The Crown], who had already been knighted.”
“Someone like me can’t turn down a part like Charles,” he continued. “He’s so interesting. He’s so complex.
“I did agonise for a while about it, but my wife tells me the result was always inevitable.”
Dominic already had something of an existing relationship with the King before accepting the role, as he was an ambassador for his Prince’s Trust charity.
When he accepted his role in The Crown, he wrote a resignation letter to the organisation, only to have it rejected by the King’s private secretary.
“It was, ‘You do what you like, you’re an actor. It’s nothing to do with us’,” Dominic told The Times of the letter’s content. “I think that’s probably how [the King] regards it.”
However, during his BBC radio interview, Dominic admitted: “I’ve done a bit of stuff for the Prince’s Trust so I’ve stood in line and shook his hand a couple of times, so not particularly intimate. Those invitations dried up.”
With his time on The Crown now over, Dominic previously admitted during an interview with HuffPost UK that his role in the royal drama was a “very hard part to shake off”.
All six seasons of The Crown are available to stream now on Netflix.