; he's on her team. 'We're all in the system – you, me, the boss. For better or worse, we're all stuck in it and we can't just air our grievances and throw bombs in the air like a normal family…' There's a wealth of meaning in his suggestion that she can 'be creative' in finding ways to be happy so long as she sticks to one rule: 'Be loyal to your husband and to this family in public.' Diana (a magnetic Elizabeth Debicki), makes no answer. Philip's parting shot is that silence is the wisest thing that he's ever heard come out of her mouth. Quite a moment. 'It was my first day filming,' Pryce says. 'Yeah, downhill from there.' Flashes of self-deprecation are his stock-in-trade but it's obvious that he's relishing his role in the multimillion-pound television production and its added momentousness since the death of the Queen. 'I had a sense of joy about watching it and a joy that I was part of it, because on every level it's great film-making,' he says. 'I was very heartened){kind=link}
From Hamlet to Game of Thrones, he’s one of our most versatile actors – but the Duke of Edinburgh in The Crown may be his trickiest role yet
In a scene of high tension and even higher stakes, the Duke of Edinburgh arrives at Kensington Palace to warn Diana, Princess of Wales not to spill the beans about her failing marriage. It is 1991 and he has been tipped off that she is collaborating on a book. She invites him to sit down but he purposefully remains standing to deliver his quietly devastating message – a piece of drama as detonating as anything we have so far had from The Crown.
We’re into the final two seasons of Queen Elizabeth II’s fictionalised story on Netflix, beginning this week, and Sir Jonathan Pryce has taken over the part of Prince Philip from Tobias Menzies with a speech and delivery so sensitive, so cunning and yet so unyielding that it is pin-drop intense to watch. The reluctant ambassador versus the unappeasable daughter-in-law, mute, wretched, knowing it’s too late.
Yes, he can be a tough old nut, he tells Diana, but he’s always had a soft spot for her. He’s protective of her, fond of her (‘There, I’ve said it’); he’s on her team. ‘We’re all in the system – you, me, the boss. For better or worse, we’re all stuck in it and we can’t just air our grievances and throw bombs in the air like a normal family…’ There’s a wealth of meaning in his suggestion that she can ‘be creative’ in finding ways to be happy so long as she sticks to one rule: ‘Be loyal to your husband and to this family in public.’
Diana (a magnetic Elizabeth Debicki), makes no answer. Philip’s parting shot is that silence is the wisest thing that he’s ever heard come out of her mouth. Quite a moment.