Princess Diana makes dramatic debut in ‘The Crown’

LONDON

More than two decades after her death, princess Diana’s ill-fated entry into the British royal family is the main storyline in the long-awaited fourth season of the hit Netflix drama “The Crown.”

Emma Corrin, a 24-year-old actress little known until now, immerses herself in the role of the young Diana, capturing her soft voice and timid gaze from under a heavy fringe.

But the actress admitted in an interview with The Sunday Times that she felt a “huge amount of pressure” to pull off the role in the new season, which debuts on Nov. 15.

Diana is shown as a naive teenager who quickly becomes lonely in the role of Prince Charles’ fiancée and rollerskates around Buckingham Palace to pass the time.

Even before their unhappy marriage, she begins cycles of bulimia: Binge-eating and then purging herself of food.
Diana Spencer had just turned 20 when the couple married in 1981, while Charles was 32.

As heir to the throne, since reaching his 30s, he had faced pressure to marry to ensure succession.

Despite having doubts, he agreed to propose to Diana but did not sever ties with his long-time lover, Camilla Parker-Bowles.

Diana was killed in a car crash in Paris in 1997 and Charles subsequently married Parker-Bowles in 2005.

While previous series depicted Charles as a sensitive and misunderstood boy, as Diana’s husband he is seen as cold and unfaithful, complaining to Camilla that she is “so weak, so fragile.”

The love triangle is one of the main storylines in the fourth season of “The Crown,” which covers the late 1970s and the 1980s.

The period was marked by deadly violence over British rule in Northern Ireland, which included the assassination of Charles’ great-uncle and confidant, Louis Mountbatten, by the IRA in 1979.

It also included the Falklands War with Argentina in 1982 during which Charles’ younger brother, Andrew, served as a Royal Navy helicopter pilot.