The 'Brassic' actor found himself unable to say no to playing the British monarch in the Netflix drama series because the royal was 'so interesting' and 'so complex.'
- Dec 21, 2023
AceShowbiz - Dominic West had mixed feelings about playing King Charles in "The Crown". The 54-year-old actor portrays a younger version of the British monarch in the hit Netflix show, but Dominic has revealed that he actually agonised about accepting the role.
"Someone like me can't turn down a part like Charles. He's so interesting. He's so complex. I did agonise for a while about it, but my wife tells me the result was always inevitable," he told BBC 5 Live.
Dominic also felt some "discomfort" about making a show about the royal family. He explained, "I acknowledge that there's discomfort about it, and I can see why people think that way, and I have persuaded myself that the royal family are public property and therefore fair game. But I'm still uncomfortable with the thought of anyone being fair game or anyone's private life being made public."
Dominic previously described "The Crown" as "imaginative speculation." The actor also advised people who don't approve of "The Crown" to watch royal documentaries instead.
He told Sky News, "It's a drama, an imaginative speculation in a way. I watched every documentary that has ever been made about my character, and there are plenty of those that people can watch if you don't want to watch what a great dramatist has created imaginatively."
What's more, Dominic acknowledged that it was tough to release a new season of the show after the death of Queen Elizabeth, who passed away in September 2022, aged 96. He shared, "I think a lot of sensibilities have obviously been stirred up after the death of the Queen, but this is a show that has always courted controversy the closer that it's got to our own times."
"Everyone has very strong opinions, we all have our memories and our opinions of those times and I think people who tune in to watch it are ultimately open to having that challenged or confirmed in whatever way that may be."
