Dominic West has admitted his own experiences of being at the centre of a media storm informed his portrayal of a younger King Charles in the final two seasons of The Crown.
Back in 2020, the Bafta winner and his The Pursuit Of Love co-star Lily James were caught on camera looking very cosy during a break in filming in Rome.
The photos spread like wildfire online, prompting Dominic and his wife Catherine FitzGerald to put on an impromptu press conference outside their home, where paparazzi photographers were waiting, staging a kiss and holding a note which read: “Our marriage is strong and we’re very much still together.”
As part of a new interview with the Sunday Times, The Crown actor was asked whether this experience “fed into his performance” as the future King.
“Definitely,” he responded. “I’d had a very acute understanding of what it’s like to feel the horror of your name or your photograph coming up in the newspapers.
“There is that dreadful freezing moment when something is being revealed about you. I think anyone can understand how that feels. But I’d been through it a couple of years previously and it must have informed how I approached it. That gut feeling of horror isn’t something you get inured to.”
Dominic continued later in the interview: “I hesitate to speak on my wife’s behalf because it was obviously horrible, particularly for her. But we do joke about it sometimes.
“Because whenever we went out together, the papers would always say we were ‘putting on a show of unity’. Even if we’d just been rowing about parking the car or whatever, even if that couldn’t be further from the truth. And so when we go out we do sort of say, ‘Shall we go and have a show of unity up in London?’.”
“It was an absurd situation. It was deeply stressful for my wife and my kids, but there were lighter moments,” he added.
During the final two seasons of The Crown, Dominic depicted some of the major moments in Charles’ life towards the end of the 20th century, including the infamous “Tampongate” scandal, which arose after his personal phone calls were secretly recorded and shared with the press.
Speaking to HuffPost UK last year, Dominic admitted he’d become “protective” of the monarch after playing him for the The Crown’s farewell seasons.
“I think he gets a lot of flak, less so perhaps now, but I do feel a bit protective of him. Just because I think he has been heroic in many ways,” he said.