A 13-year-old schoolboy has been tipped for stardom after beating thousands of other child actors to win the role of a young Prince Harry in The Crown.
Millions of viewers will see Fflyn Edwards appear in heart-rending scenes as Princess Diana’s sons try to come to terms with her death in a car crash in Paris.
The Welsh speaker has studied footage of the young prince to perfect his accent and is fitted with a distinctive red wig to play Harry, who was only 12 when his mother died.
His agent Mark Jermin said Fflyn was clearly destined to be a success from his first audition four years ago.
He said: “We have an acting school in Swansea and we were looking for new talent for a project for the BBC and he came along to one of our auditions.
“Even though it was his first audition, there was something really special about him and he landed a job with that first audition which was a children’s BBC series called The Snow Spider.”
The Crown, which has been a huge international hit since its premiere on Netflix in 2016, tells the story of the royal family from the wedding of the late Queen in 1947.
It was developed by playwright Peter Morgan who previously enjoyed success with the film The Queen and the West End show The Audience based on the monarch’s regular meetings with her Prime Ministers.
Among the star names to feature in The Crown are Claire Foy and Olivia Colman, who both played Queen Elizabeth II at different stages in her life, as well as Matt Smith who played Prince Philip, Gillian Anderson as Margaret Thatcher, and Emma Corrin and Elizabeth Debicki, who portrayed Diana in different seasons of the show.
It has been criticised previously for some of its treatment of historical events and is expected to come in for more criticism over its portrayal of Diana’s death.
Mr Jermin, whose firm Mark Jermin Management represents adult actors as well as child stars, said he was confident Fflyn would be able to deal with the inevitable attention when the new series comes out.
He said: “He hasn’t stopped working for the past two and a half years.
“He has also been filming 1899 for Netflix, he’s played Sienna Miller’s son in a feature film, he is a bright boy with really good parents and he was aware of how important this role was in history.
“He is set for stardom. This is the start of something for Fflyn, The Crown is just one of many things on his CV.”
