Actress who plays Queen Camilla in The Crown praises royal’s restraint

The actress who plays the Queen Consort in the final season of The Crown has praised the royal family for its “restraint” – despite “how much pain she was in” in the 1990s.

Speaking on Gabby Logan’s The Mid-Point podcast today, Olivia Williams was incredulous that Camilla maintained a calm public composure despite her mother’s creeping death, struggling marriage, and the press all at once.

“I think what she’s done, which is extraordinary, is she never showed us the wounds,” said the Netflix star, 54, from London. “I don’t think she’s unharmed, I don’t think she can be.”

She added, “But unlike some people, she was very reticent about showing how much pain she was in at the time.”

Olivia was cast to play Camilla in the final two seasons of the Netflix hit The Crown in 2021.

That same year, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle took part in their infamous Oprah Winfrey interview, in which they accused the royal family of racism — though the Duke of Sussex has since insisted the comment was about “unconscious bias.”

Harry later branded Camilla a “bad guy” in his Spare memoir, claiming she sacrificed him on the “PR altar” by leaking stories to bolster her own position.

Olivia admitted that she probably played Camilla in her “darkest days.”

“It was a terrible time,” she explained.

‘What people said about Camilla – or Her Majesty as we should now call her – when her affair was discovered and Diana and Charles split up, it was a terrible time in her life…

“It caused the breakup of her marriage, which seems to be the kind of marriage that can withstand some sort of open agreement.”

When she and Andrew Parker Bowles called it quits – after Charles admitted to the relationship on television – Camilla lost her home and family.

The actress says Camilla also went through a tumultuous life period in the 1990s in terms of family dynamics.

“She was also a complete sandwich generation in that her kids grew up during the time when her parents were very sick,” she noted.

“She has spoken very openly about her mother’s very painful and slow death from osteoporosis and I think she was right in the middle of it.

“Our children are entering a time that is even more demanding than even breastfeeding…being a late teen…it’s a very difficult age.

“Menopause is a blow to the head and body at the same time and the maintenance of these two extraordinary relationships … with her husband and her lover, who happens to be the Prince of Wales.”

Olivia believes that a strong sense of humor allowed Charles and Camilla to survive the backlash that followed Diana’s death in 1997 – which she and Dominic West, who plays her on-screen beau, both focused on in their performance.

“Dominic West is my king in so many ways,” she noted. “He’s a wonderful actor to work with and we’ve had so much fun.

“I can’t imagine getting through these scenes with someone who doesn’t have a sense of humor.”

“We both believe that a sense of humor is the essence of Charles and Camilla’s success,” she added.

“Which should now be considered a very successful relationship by all standards that has survived so many things.

“And they always seem to laugh at the same thing when you see them together, just like Dominic and I – we get along really well.”

Referring to the so-called “Tampongate” or “Camillagate” scandal, when an intimate phone conversation between Charles and Camilla was recorded and then leaked in 1989, Olivia said, “The core of the famous phone call, the royal phone sex, to us it was funny.

“They were joking, and it was that kind of joking love talk and once we found that route, we haven’t looked back, it was a lot of fun.”

The star also revealed that she met Camilla years ago, long before she started researching the role.

“I was a judge on the Booker Prize and she is the patron of the Booker Prize because she is a strong advocate for literacy,” said Olivia, who also praised the Queen Consort’s other advocacy work on domestic violence.

It comes as – after months of heartless portrayal of the late Princess Diana’s death, the Netflix bosses have decided to end The Crown’s upcoming series on a high by showing the wedding of King Charles and Queen Camilla.

The streaming giant has come under scrutiny for recreating the Paris car crash that killed Diana, and the funeral that took place afterwards.

But after the controversy, which has upset members of the royal family, writer Peter Morgan will portray the wedding as the season finale – which will be the series’ final.

Sources at Netflix say they hope this will put an end to criticism that the streaming service has contempt for the Queen and the royal family.

The rendition of the wedding will be filmed at York Minster, which is being used in place of St George’s Chapel in Windsor, where the King and Camilla were married in 2005.

It is clear that their marriage will be portrayed in a positive way, with some working on the show hoping that audiences will feel “warm and happy” rather than outraged by the death of Princess Diana, aged 36. age. , was displayed.

A source close to Netflix told the Mail: ‘For several months now, it feels like the show has been titillating audiences by creepily telling the story of Diana’s death in a heartless way, unnecessarily upsetting Princes William and Harry.

So the decision to end it so nicely, Netflix hopes, will change the perception that they want to be heartless, they hope it will take the bad taste out of viewers’ mouths.

Charles and Camilla’s wedding will be a celebration and a very happy moment in the history of the monarchy. It also fits nicely in the year of the King’s coronation.

“But there are some staff working on the program who see this all as a cynical move to prevent Netflix from really upsetting the public by retelling Diana’s tragic death.”

The series, which will be the sixth and final filming, will also pay tribute to the Queen, featuring several ‘flashbacks’ to when she was a child and teenager.

There will also be storylines where she will dream of the past and the future.

Footage has emerged in recent months of the Paris car crash and funeral where grief-stricken William and Harry, then aged 15 and 12, will follow their mother’s coffin in scenes filmed in a disused RAF base in Oxfordshire. .