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“The Crown” is moving into the ’90s for its fifth season, bringing with it a new cast to play members of the British royal family.
At the center of the series? Elizabeth Debicki, portraying Princess Diana in the time leading up to, and following, her 1992 separation from King Charles III, then Prince Charles.
Debicki takes over the role from Emma Corrin, who was introduced in Season Four as a younger version of the People’s Princess. Lady Diana Spencer married Charles in 1981 when she had just turned 20; in “The Crown” Season Five, Diana is in her 30s.
Hype is building for Debicki’s big debut as Diana, thanks to behind-the-scenes photos from the currently filming Season Six. Recently released posters and trailers with Debicki front and center have stirred up Twitter, with one user saying Debicki’s portrayal “will be the slay of the century” and another saying, “she’s going to carry season five.”
Keep reading to learn more about her life and career.
Elizabeth Debicki (right) on set of “The Crown” portraying Princess Diana (left).Getty Images, Splash News
Born in Paris, Debicki grew up in Australia
Debicki was born in Paris in 1990 to parents who were both professional ballet dancers, she told MindFood in a 2015 interview. Her family moved to Melbourne, Australia when she was five, she told The Age, and she grew up with a younger sister and brother.
“We have a lot of family in Europe, and Paris still feels like home,” Debicki told The Age.
And the love for those areas remains. Debicki splits her time between three cities: Los Angeles, London and Sydney, Australia.
She’s trained as a ballet dancer, too
Debicki originally intended to become a ballet dancer, like her parents — but said, standing six-foot-two at 17-year-old, Debicki realized she was too tall. (She is now six-foot-three).
“I was taller than my teachers when I was 12, and I remember the lightbulb moment: This isn’t going to work,” she told Allure.
She told the publication that transitioning to acting from dancing was natural: “Dancing gives an innate physical awareness—it’s physical training. Acting feels like the same medium but just with words.”
In this way, Debicki and Diana share a biographical similarity. At five-foot-ten, biographer Tina Brown wrote that Diana realized she was a bit too tall for a career in ballet.
Elizabeth Debicki was born in Paris but grew up in Australia.Theo Wargo / WireImage
Past movies: What else has Elizabeth Debicki been in?
After graduating with an acting degree from Melbourne’s Victorian College of the Arts in 2010, Debicki made her film debut with Australian comedy “A Few Best Men.”
In 2013, Debicki — at 22, with only one film credit to her name — starred as Jordan Baker in “The Great Gatsby.” Debicki also appeared in “Widows” in 2018, for which she received critical acclaim, acting alongside Viola Davis, and “Tenet” in 2020.
Debicki plays Ayesha, leader of the Sovereign race, in “Guardians of the Galaxy 2.” When the movie was first released, she told Marvel Entertainment, “She’s a pretty extreme character. She doesn’t have a huge amount of humor to her. But I loved how exacting she was. She’s kind of merciless. I like that about her.”
Debicki is reprising her role in the third movie of the Marvel series, which is scheduled for release on March 23, 2023.
Elizabeth Debicki in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, 2017. Everett Collection
She’s opened up about her body image
The actor told Glamour Magazine in 2020 that she’s worked hard to have a healthy body image.
“Body image is something that’s highly complex because it’s never to do with intelligence, and you can know better, but that doesn’t stop something being indoctrinated into you. It’s shocking how systemic it’s been, how it’s come in your thinking. When I broke it down to when I was younger, a lot of it was what I thought I had to be something for someone else,” she told the magazine.
She added, “I look back at me when I was younger now with so much compassion and I think I was just doing my best, I was trying so hard, I was so hard on myself. I think I’m only really just starting to come into that place of letting go of that,” she said.
Elizabeth Debicki in New York in 2020.Charles Sykes / AP
What she’s saying about playing Diana in ‘The Crown’
She landed “The Crown” role when she was 29 and said in a statement published in Town & Country earlier this month that “Princess Diana’s spirit, her words and her actions live in the hearts of so many.”
“It is my true privilege and honor to be joining this masterful series, which has had me absolutely hooked from Episode One,” she said.
Debicki added that the thought of playing Diana made her “overwhelmed” and “terrified.”
“It’s a dream role. She is such a remarkable human being and she really does still live in the hearts of so many people,” Debicki said.
After landing the part, Debicki said people texted her about one thing, specifically: The black, off-the-shoulder dress Diana wore the same day Charles confessed to infidelity on TV in 1994. It’s been dubbed the “Revenge Dress.”
“When it became known that I had the part, I received these text messages saying congratulations, but there was also a huge amount of text messages about the Revenge Dress. ‘Do you get to wear the Revenge Dress?’ ‘Oh my God, you get to wear the Revenge Dress!’” she told Entertainment Weekly.
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