Netflix Releases First Look Images from Part 1 of the Final Season of ‘The Crown’

Erik Anderson October 16, 2023

Netflix has released several first look images of Part 1 of the sixth and final season of The Crown, one of the streamer’s flagship drama series’ which has earned 69 Emmy nominations across 5 seasons (with 21 wins including Best Drama across 4 seasons), 10 Golden Globe nominations (including 4 wins), 15 BAFTA nominations, and more.

Season 6 Part 1 premieres on Netflix on November 16. These first four episodes of the final season depict a relationship blossoming between Princess Diana and Dodi Fayed before a fateful car journey has devastating consequences.

Part 1 features the return of Elizabeth Debicki as Princess Diana, Dominic West as Prince Charles, Imelda Staunton as the Queen, Salim Daw as Mohamed Al Fayed, and Khalid Abdalla as Dodi Fayed, and introduces Rufus Kampa as Prince William and Fflyn Edwards as Prince Harry.

Speaking about her starring role in this season, Elizabeth Debicki (Princess Diana) said: “I think it’s a really unique challenge as an actor, to portray those days. I really just trusted in Peter’s emotional blueprint that he created for us to follow. It’s his interpretation and I think it made emotional sense to me, so I clung to that. Because, obviously, it’s devastating and it’s fraught and we can never know.”

For both Dominic West (Prince Charles) and Imelda Staunton (Queen Elizabeth II) there is an ease and an understanding to taking on these characters for a second season.

Imelda Staunton says “I’ve been living with her for a long time so, if anything, I felt more comfortable this time. I love her stillness and her ability to not be thrown by everything that must have constantly – throughout her whole life – gone on around her.”

Dominic West says of Prince Charles: “I think he’s got real sadness to him and real compassion and what’s great about The Crown is that you see these public figures in private. I suspect in private he’s quite emotional, well that’s the way I played him anyway… I think, hopefully, what comes out is compassionate but relatively well-balanced.

“I talked to a lot of people who have met him because he’s met a lot of people, he’s met probably more than anyone except the Queen and Prince Philip. Almost everyone has extremely warm, kind things to say about him.”

Salim Daw feels strongly about playing Mohamed Al Fayed: “I adore this character. I love him so much and I enjoy portraying him because I love him. In this huge series, he is so human and he’s so colourful. He’s hard sometimes, very hard, funny, like a child – with his son he’s sometimes very, very hard but he has plenty of love for his son and the audience will see that and will feel exactly what I’m talking about.”

And Khalid Abdalla on playing his son, Dodi Fayed says: “It’s been the honour of my life to be part of this project, to be part of The Crown, and to play Dodi.”

The 6th season of The Crown will close out the genre-defining prestige royal saga that has been on screens since 2016. The Crown’s final season will premiere in two parts: Part 1 on November 16 and Part 2 on December 14.

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Erik Anderson

Erik Anderson is the founder/owner and Editor-in-Chief of AwardsWatch and has always loved all things Oscar, having watched the Academy Awards since he was in single digits; making lists, rankings and predictions throughout the show. This led him down the path to obsessing about awards. Much later, he found himself in film school and the film forums of GoldDerby, and then migrated over to the former Oscarwatch (now AwardsDaily), before breaking off to create AwardsWatch in 2013.

He is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, accredited by the Cannes Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and more, is a member of the International Cinephile Society (ICS), The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics (GALECA), Hollywood Critics Association (HCA) and the International Press Academy. Among his many achieved goals with AwardsWatch, he has given a platform to underrepresented writers and critics and supplied them with access to film festivals and the industry and calls the Bay Area his home where he lives with his husband and son.