In an interview with Variety, actor Dominic West talked about the many ways that Season 5 of “The Crown” has stirred up controversy, including with his portrayal of King Charles III in the 1990s, when he was merely heir to the throne and tormenting Princess Diana with his indifference to her needs and his affair with Camilla Parker Bowles.
West also had something to say Variety about how people don’t so much object to his performance, but that they can’t square him with playing the big-eared and often-stiff Charles. After all, West is an actor who’s built a career on being rakishly handsome and who can legitimately play heavy-duty sex scenes in “The Wire” or “The Affair.”
To West’s fans, he’s “hot.” And, as argued on Twitter, Charles is not.
With Variety, West acknowledged that “The Crown” “has stirred up a lot of controversy” because Queen Elizabeth II died in September. Notably, Season 5, which dropped Wednesday, portrays the queen and the monarchy as archaic, repressive and cruel to anyone — such as Diana — who possesses a free spirit or star power.
For Charles, Diana, Camilla and the rest of the royal family, West agreed that the season depicts “probably the most tumultuous time of their lives, a time more people remember than ever before.” In the early 1990s, the royal family endured scandal after scandal, especially with the public meltdown of Charles and Diana’s long-unhappy marriage. Details about each spouse’s infidelity and the future king’s desire to live as “a tampon” in Camilla’s vagina, were blasted across tabloid headlines.
All that said, Variety writer K.J. Rosman said that the main criticism being leveled at West and Olivia Williams, who plays Camilla, is that both actors are “too hot” to play the royal couple. When asked for his response about his “hotness,” West laughed and said, “Well I think there’s something in that you know. I’ve had worse.”
Meanwhile, “The Crown’s” treatment of Charles in Season 5 is a mixed bag. In the first episode, he’s seen trying to get Prime Minister John Major to join him in a plot to force the queen to abdicate. In this and other episodes, he comes across as duplicitous and self-involved. He looks for reasons to ignore Diana on a family vacation, and he rails against her for being too maternal when they go to register their 13-year-old son, Prince William, at Eaton.
At other times, Charles comes across as being the potential modernizer the monarchy needs, as well as another victim of “the system,” in that he was unable to marry Camilla, the woman he truly loved.
For many of “The Crown” watchers, the main issue they have with West as Charles is the hotness factor, as they’ve shared on social media. They say that Josh O’Conner, who played Charles in Seasons 3 and 4, better captured Charles’ awkwardness and mannerisms.
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