Dominic West Is Going to Miss Playing King Charles

When Dominic West wrapped on The Crown, he tried to keep Prince Charles's cuff links, "but they took them back off me." He did, however, succeed in keeping the tea towel with his face on it.

"It was an intensely enjoyable production to be on," West tells Town & Country. "You are not only dealing with a great dramatist at the top of his game and similar in the actors around you, but you're also in such beautiful places and wearing such beautiful clothes and driving very nice cars, too."

He adds, "There won't be any productions that there will be quite so epic and grand in scale. My last couple of scenes was the marriage of Charles and Camilla, which we did in York Minster, this great cathedral in Yorkshire with a whole full orchestra and a full choir and 400 extras bowing to me and Olivia [Williams] as we walked down the aisle and two dozen ornamental bay trees. I just thought, it is not going to get better than this."

As the final episodes of The Crown are now streaming on Netflix, West reflected on his tenure playing the Prince of Wales, watching Charles become king, and his deep affection for the royal.

West plays Prince Charles in the final two seasons of The Crown.

Is there a particular scene or moment that stands out to you as a favorite?

There was so many, really. I mean, proposing to Camilla in the potting shed was Olivia's really good idea... I had the scene with Elizabeth Debicki in the plane where she comes as a ghost. I don't get many scenes with Elizabeth. I had that one last season where we were making the omelet. I really think she's done an extraordinary job and she's an amazing actress to act with. Those two scenes stick in my head quite a lot.

Something I know you've spoken about before is about how The Crown portrays Charles as a father. Some of the moments, especially in the back half of this season, that Charles shares with Prince William were some of my favorite scenes. What was it like working with young actors like Ed McVey, who plays William and Luther Ford, who plays Harry?

Ford and McVey are the show’s final Prince Harry and Prince William.

Well, it was great because [Ed's] really good and he's done his time. Luther hasn't—Luther, I think Luther was his first job and it was totally instinctive what he was doing brilliantly. Ed's done his time in the theater and he's been an understudy a lot. I did some of those scenes with my own son, much younger than Ed, and we decided that he wasn't going to do those older scenes anyway.

I didn't really want to be with my own son for these very emotional scenes around Diana's death. I remember feeling quite a relief when I then did those scenes with Ed, not only because he was not my son, but also because he was that much older and maturer. I love that scene where he's accusing me of basically of being responsible for his mother's death. I think in that not very long scene, I think Peter justifies the accusations leveled at Charles.

What has it been like for you, particularly this year, watching Charles as King now, knowing all these little peculiarities about him or knowing that he's probably eating muesli before his coronation or those types of things?

It's hard not to bring the present man into the historic man, or even the real man into Peter Morgan's version of him. But it was a wonderful gift to have all that coronation stuff and the pen—the irritation about the pen! You don't get many glimpses of what's going on behind the public persona. So I greedily devoured all those moments. They are gold dust to an actor, really.

King Charles on his coronation day.

The cast has remained consistent between seasons five and six, but the biggest different is that the actors that play your sons has changed. What was it like working with the different sets of actors?

I didn't really think about it too much. I suppose the only thing I thought about was should I have kept my son involved? But no, I think because they were so good, it didn't really come up. I was just glad that they were good and that it was so easy acting with them, that there wasn't any concession being made because they were inexperienced or very young. They'd done so much work and they'd come to it so professionally and so seriously that it was easy really.

What does it feel like to say goodbye to Charles, to close this chapter on this part of your career?

The show ends with Charles and Camilla’s 2005 nuptials.

Oh, I miss him. I'm still reading all the news articles about him. I adore him. I feel real affection for him, which I didn't particularly feel before. And having watched him for so long, I don't feel I'm any closer or more knowledgeable about him but he does fascinate me. He's likable, as well as an interesting character.

Has anything surprised you about the reaction to your portrayal of Charles, or the reaction to the show?

I think the trouble is [with] a lot of actors, you inevitably root for your guy a bit and give him the benefit of the doubt a lot. And that can be a hazard, I think, if you are making him too nice or you're making him too, I don't know, self-aware... But Peter kept me on quite a tight reign with that. And so I hope he's a rounded character—certainly he has him being irritable, he has him being spoiled, he has him being entitled. And I embraced that probably even more in my second season than I had before. I was happier to show the darker side of him.

The back half of this season goes into Charles's relationship to the press, and how he encourages his sons to do a photocall before their vacation. What do you make of that relationship?

West, center, with McVey (left) and Ford (right) in episode six.

Essentially, he's made every mistake going. He's been around for so long, dealing with them for so long, and someone whose natural instinct was so... I remember an interview he gave, I can't remember when, but 'it doesn't occur to me what my image is like.' It's so alien to someone like him, of his class, to worry about his appearance or his image. That's where he thinks he's coming from. And then he's learnt, obviously since then, that of course he thinks about his image. He has to, that's his job and he's doing it unconsciously, whether he thinks he is or not.

He's been through it all, it's been about as bad as it can get. And he's been grilled about as hard as he possibly could be. And so I imagine, like with so much in his life, I think there's a certain resolution now he's King. I think there's a certain, probably relief, that he no longer is allowed to be political or outspoken.

He's landed on his feet—or with a crown on his head, more accurately.

He gets to be entirely passive, which is what we all want to be when we're old.

Emily Burack

Senior News Editor

Emily Burack (she/her) is the Senior News Editor for Town & Country, where she covers entertainment, culture, the royals, and a range of other subjects. Before joining T&C, she was the deputy managing editor at Hey Alma, a Jewish culture site. Follow her @emburack on Twitter and Instagram.