Elizabeth Debicki Playing Diana in The Crown Adores Humayun Saeed
We wonder whether the creators of The Crown caught a whiff of how beloved Princess Diana is in Pakistan and therefore decided to cast Pakistani actor Humayun Saeed to play the role of Dr Hasnat Khan, her lover. It seems that the actors who play the characters on the show are on great terms as well. Elizabeth Debicki had great things to say about the Meray Paas Tum Ho actor.
“I absolutely adored Humayun — he was such a lovely actor, and such a beautiful person,” she told Entertainment Weekly. “You never know how that’s going to feel when you’re playing things like that with an actor. So, I was very lucky to have him and I think he does such a beautiful job.”
The Crown season five, set to release on November 9, is going to be the second last season of the show. Set in the 90s, it covers a range of events that took place in that time period such as a fire at Windsor Castle, the ending of Prince Andrew and Princess Anne’s marriages and Diana’s death in 1997. The princess passed away in a car accident which also claimed the life of her boyfriend, Dodi Fayed, and the car’s driver. The focus is also on the friction between Charles and Diana who officially separated in 1992 and divorced five years later.
The show will see Diana try to establish a life outside the royal family and viewers are excited to see history play out on screen. They are especially looking forward to Debicki wearing a recreation of the princess’ “revenge dress”. Diana wore a fitted, off-shoulder black dress designed by Christina Stambolian at London’s Serpentine Gallery in 1994 — the same night a documentary screened about Prince Charles in which he confessed to being unfaithful to his wife after their marriage had “irretrievably broken down”, according to EW.
“It fascinated me how entranced people were with that dress,” shared Debicki. “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!’” The Tenet actor said wearing the outfit felt “very significant and quite powerful, but also it provoked something in me as an actor. I can’t really explain it. It’s pretty incredible that a dress would represent a moment in history, or that this human’s life would represent so much and become so iconic. So that was a big day on set for me!”
She feels “so fortunate to have this huge time span of years in which to play the character. It’s my hope that people feel that there’s an enormous evolution in her as the season progresses. For me, it’s a journey into a human finding a part of themselves that is profoundly strong — there’s a piece that has survived so much and can flourish.” - Images
