The Crown is back for its much-anticipated sixth season, and Netflix has just unveiled some brand new images of the incoming cast.
For the show's final season, Dominic West returns after taking over the role of Prince Charles from Josh O'Connor in season five. "Last season, I was worried about everything and texting [show creator Peter Morgan] madly at 5 o'clock in the morning and this season, everything was just much more settled."
However, the season itself wasn't easy for his character, Charles. The episodes cover, "sort of the worst period of Charles's life because it's the death of Diana and so there's a lot of the scenes of Charles trying to come to terms with that and breaking the news to his sons and trying to help his sons mourn and having varying degrees of success at that," the actor explained. "There were some really heavy scenes this season and a lot of tears for Charles.
Then there was a lot of set piece teas at Windsor Castle or Christmas day or family photos or weddings where all of us were there and they were the biggest joy because you're in a room with a bunch of people you've got to know quite well by this stage and everyone looks like a member of the royal family so it's hilarious and then Imelda walks in and you go “my god there's the queen”."
In an interview that was released ahead of season 5, West reflected on his approach to the role. “I think people understand, because the cast has changed every two seasons, that this is not an imitation,” he said. “This is an evoking of a character. That's really where the show lives: in the imagined conversations of their private life, which is something that no one knows. I think that's what it gets a lot of criticism for. How can you know what they talk about in their private lives? The obvious answer is we don't, but we have an incredible writer, a dramatist, who imagines based on exhaustive research, and that's really part of the fascination of the show.”
West has appeared in several iconic shows before The Crown, so there's a good chance you'll recognize him. Here's a quick rundown of what you need to know about the actor's previous roles.
His breakout role was in HBO's The Wire.
HBO's Baltimore-set crime drama is widely regarded as one of the best television shows of all time, and West starred as wise-cracking police detective Jimmy McNulty. The Guardian aptly summed up the character as a "drunken, obnoxious but strangely lovable detective with a dogged and destructive approach to his work."
When West auditioned for The Wire, he was on the verge of abandoning Hollywood to go home to the UK, and didn't know anything about the show beyond the one scene he was sent. "I set up a video camera in my living room and started doing my best Robert De Niro impression," he told The Guardian. "My girlfriend was supposed to be reading the other lines but she was laughing too much so I just had to leave pauses where necessary. Anyway, within 10 days I was in Baltimore shadowing a homicide cop."
The Wire's creator, David Simon, has credited West with helping to shape McNulty into the iconic character he became. "At some points, the audience desperately wanted McNulty to be a better man than he was, and at other key moments, that same audience came to love him for being so bluntly honest and indifferent to the rules," Simon told the Baltimore Sun. "Dom provided room for all of that, and he found the core of every scene we threw at him. He's a pro and among the best I've worked with."
He also starred opposite Ruth Wilson in Showtime's The Affair.
Six years after The Wire wrapped up its acclaimed run, West returned to American television to star in another premium cable hit. Showtime's The Affair chronicled the extramarital affair between West and Wilson's characters, and the impact it has on their lives and relationships. But what made the show groundbreaking was a narrative device wherein it depicted the same events from the perspectives of two different characters, showing how unreliable and biased memories can be.
"It’s deliberately provocative, it’s deliberately melodramatic," West told The New York Times ahead of the show's third season. "There’s never a moment where there aren’t six things going on in the protagonist’s mind that aren’t highly traumatized and mentally extreme. And a lot of the characters don’t behave in a way that is necessarily sympathetic, and that is entirely deliberate on [showrunner Sarah Treem]’s part, because she’s interested in taking them on a journey where they have redemption, and they overcome their shortcomings. And I couldn’t really argue with that, even if I didn’t really like the behavior myself."
West appeared in all five seasons of the show, which aired its finale in 2019.
He's appeared in dozens of movies.
Ever since he broke out in The Wire, West has been working regularly on both the big and small screens. His best-known movies include 300, Chicago, Mona Lisa Smile, Pride, Finding Dory, and 2018's Tomb Raider remake. He also starred as Jean Valjean in PBS and the BBC's adaptation of Les Misérables.
West also appeared in Downton Abbey 2, playing Guy Dexter, a fictional, famous silent film actor who visited Downton in order to film a new role.
Emma Dibdin is a freelance writer based in Los Angeles who writes about culture, mental health, and true crime. She loves owls, hates cilantro, and can find the queer subtext in literally anything.
