Prince Harry’s bombshell memoir “Spare” hit the bookshelves this previous January — simply months earlier than “The Crown” dropped its sixth and last season.
Now, actor Dominic West — who performed Prince (Now King) Charles on the Netflix royal drama — has revealed that he ran to select up a replica of the autobiography as soon as it got here out.
The British star, 54, divulged that he used the Duke of Sussex’s phrases to influence his efficiency on the present — calling the ebook a “reward.”
“I purchased it instantly, and I feel it did barely have an effect on the way in which we performed that key scene the place he wakes Harry up,” the “Wire” actor defined to Selection just lately.
He went on: “I’ve been studying each newspaper article or journalistic article on him since I acquired the job.”
“In a manner, this was a present that he was within the headlines every single day when he was turning into king — like getting irritated by the fountain pen,” West mentioned. “Within the chilly, formal exterior of this man, I attempted to get these little tells.”
The “Affair” alum famous that “Spare” closely influenced his performing in a single explicit scene of “The Crown” — the second the place Charles knowledgeable Harry that his mom Princess Diana died in 1997 within the early hours of the morning.
The “Invictus Video games” founder penned in his ebook concerning the tragedy: “Pa didn’t hug me. He wasn’t nice at displaying feelings beneath regular circumstances. However his hand did fall as soon as extra on my knee and he mentioned, ‘It’s going to be okay.’”
Within the TV collection, West did simply that — put his palm on a younger Harry’s knee when he went to wake him as much as inform him about Diana’s passing.
West’s have to seize “Spare” to assist out his performing gig is in stark distinction to “The Crown” creator Peter Morgan, who opted to not scan the ebook when engaged on the final season.
Morgan instructed Selection in October that he hadn’t “learn a phrase of it.” He added, “Not that I wouldn’t have an interest. However I didn’t need his voice to inhabit my considering an excessive amount of. I’ve acquired a variety of sympathy with him, a variety of sympathy. However I didn’t wish to learn his ebook.”
One other real-life occasion that influenced the ultimate season was the September 2022 dying and funeral of Queen Elizabeth.
Season six even includes a scene the place the Queen (performed by Imelda Staunton) plans her personal procession and burial.
West additionally acknowledged to Selection how the ultimate season was “very a lot affected by the Queen’s funeral.”
He continued: “I spotted it once I learn the episode. A part of the rationale Peter needed to separate this season into two is the extremely dominating story of Diana is, kind of, put to mattress, and we understand that what this complete present has been about is Elizabeth. Peter goes very a lot again to her, full circle, in the long run.”
Half one among season six premiered on Nov. 16 whereas the second section dropped on Dec. 14. The primary slice handled the aftermath of Diana’s dying whereas half two dove into the ageing monarch’s reign into the 21st century.