For both Emma Corrin and Elizabeth Debicki, the road to “The Crown” began with failed auditions. Each performer was up for a guest part in the Netflix series’ early seasons; both ended up playing Princess Diana at different ages. Corrin was Emmy-nominated for portraying the newly wed and then increasingly disillusioned princess in Season 4. Debicki, previously a nominee for Season 5, which centered on Diana’s divorce from Prince Charles, is eligible for a nomination this year for the show’s final season, in which Diana tragically dies in Paris. Corrin has springboarded off their “Crown” success into further risky and intriguing roles — this season playing the enigmatic and dogged sleuth Darby Hart on FX’s snowbound mystery “A Murder at the End of the World,” created by Brit Marling and Zal Batmanglij.

EMMA CORRIN: We had a similar thing where you auditioned for a smaller role before.

ELIZABETH DEBICKI: Yeah.

CORRIN: For Season 1 or 2?

DEBICKI: 2.

CORRIN: Mad. And then they called you back. What was the role you went in for?

DEBICKI: I’ve never told anyone what the role is because the person who did it was so brilliant.

CORRIN: Was it a big role?

DEBICKI: You know how in “The Crown,” there are cameos that pop up and the whole episode becomes about that person that might only appear for one or two?

CORRIN: Mm-hmm.

DEBICKI: So, in that sense, it was a big role. But I was almost completely physically wrong for it.

CORRIN: Love an audition like that.

DEBICKI: Love that. You feel very prepared. Here’s my takeaway from the fact that we both have this story: Maybe we’re better at acting when we’re not trying. I went to do this audition because Season 1 had just aired and it was huge. Do you remember?

CORRIN: I remember where I was when I first watched it. I was in my second year of uni in my tiny single bed in an attic somewhere. Cross-legged on my bed.

DEBICKI: With your little dinner on your lap?

CORRIN: My little pot noodles. Being like, “Whoa, this is cool!” I hadn’t seen anything like it before. Peter Morgan smashed it.

DEBICKI: It was so lush. To be frank, the amount of money that was on the screen was extraordinary. It was sort of at the dawn of television becoming this Golden Age — especially Netflix. I don’t know when “House of Cards” came out — my 20s are a blur. But I went in for the Season 2 part, and I got an email a few days later from my agent saying, “Not that part, but we are thinking …”

CORRIN: And they explicitly said it? That’s wild.

DEBICKI: I guess they must have felt something Diana in it, which is hilarious because I wasn’t playing an English person even. The funny thing is, for five or six years, I continued to watch “The Crown” religiously, and I would think, “I wonder if that’s ever going to come around.” And when you were cast, I thought, “Well, it was a nice dream.”

CORRIN: Oh no.

DEBICKI: And I thought, “Well, you’re perfect. Who is this creature?” I sort of gave up the thing when you appeared.

CORRIN: I went in for a chambermaid — a real “Tree No. 2” kind of role. The queen’s chambermaid — is that what it’s called?

DEBICKI: Lady-in-waiting.

CORRIN: That one. I went in for that and never heard anything.

DEBICKI: What was the line?

CORRIN: Something like, “Yes, ma’am.” Curtsy.

DEBICKI: I can’t imagine you just went in for Tree No. 2.

CORRIN: No, genuinely. And then I got asked to read with the Camillas.

DEBICKI: Once you had the part, how much time did you have to prepare?

CORRIN: I want to say six months. And I read that you did a similar thing, which is to ask for all the research. You’ve got all the binders. I loved it.

DEBICKI: It just landed in this big box outside my flat. The one thing that struck me about “The Crown” was the machinery to help you prepare was so extensive and available. Should you wish to click on any of these boxes, these things were just there for you. That, for me, was — after doing many other jobs — something I’d never seen before.

CORRIN: Did you feel overwhelmed by it?

DEBICKI: It was a double-edged sword. Because I love to just dive straight in. If I do something that’s historic, I’ll find any reason to do immense amounts of research. But this was particularly overwhelming.

CORRIN: With her, it’s bottomless. At some point, I was like, “I’ve got to stop, because there’s too much.”

DEBICKI: I’m curious about at what point you decided to throw it out. For me, I was trying to carry around so much information. And it was important, because at one point during, I’m sure, a mild nervous-panic-attack-breakdown thing, I decided that what would stick would stick, and it would have to do. Because there was no way of accumulating everything I felt I needed to. And I was doing more than I’d ever done because I felt that I owed —

CORRIN: You want to do it justice.
Continue reading