🤐 SPOILER ALERT 🤐

After all the drama leading up to it, Charles (Dominic West) and Diana’s (Elizabeth Debicki) divorce is depicted as a fairly routine proceeding in The Crown. In Season 5, Episode 9, the royal pair is simply “couple 31,” just one unhappy duo among dozens ending their union on July 15, 1996. But the climax of the episode comes after the papers are signed, when Charles visits Diana in Kensington Palace once the divorce is finalized. In that long, intimate sequence, the audience gets a glimpse of what could have been if circumstances had been different. In a new installment of The Crown: The Official Podcast, host Edith Bowman talks to “Couple 31” director Christian Schwochow about putting together this moving moment between the Prince and Princess of Wales. You can read an edited transcript of their conversation below. For more behind-the-scenes insight into the episode, check out the full podcast and hear from executive producer Suzanne Mackie, head of research  Annie Sulzberger and Olivia Williams, who plays Camilla Parker-Bowles. 

Edith Bowman: In this episode, we get an explosive scene between Charles and Diana. 

When the divorce is finalized, Charles drives to see Diana at Kensington Palace, and what starts off as a pleasant exchange ends in yet another painful argument. I was desperate to speak to the director of this episode, Christian Schwochow, to hear about the decision-making behind [this scene]. 

Christian Schwochow: When Peter talked to me about this episode first, he would only talk about this scene. He pitched it to me: “Christian, there’s this divorce episode and it is about the divorce and about the lawyers. But at the end, it’s this moment where Charles feels he has to go and see her one last time.” And then it’s this massive scene that’s only set in the kitchen of Kensington Palace. And they talk and they fight, but we also feel that there was love. My main focus always was that scene, or it’s actually a sequence of three different scenes. It’s arriving there, then it’s them cooking together and then eating, which ends up being the big scene. I don’t know. I think it’s eight or nine minutes long.

So what we did first is, we’ve never seen the kitchen before, it’s a studio build and Frank, my DP and I, we, we started thinking what would we need. We spoke to Martin Childs, who’s the production designer, [and] we kind of developed the layout for that kitchen together. Those three scenes were my three first shooting days for my work on The Crown for Season 5. I was kind of shocked when I heard that it was three days in the week before Christmas, because [the rest of] my actual shooting would start in January.

But [during] those three days I met Elizabeth and Dominic and I realized they really like each other and there was a chemistry, and we started with reading the scenes and Peter came in and he would start [rewriting]. That’s what always happens when Peter is there. When we rehearse or shoot, he would start rewriting immediately, which is not always great, but can be great. We would sit and read together and then Peter left, and all three scenes were meant to be shot on our studio stages. 

We actually started rehearsing for, I think, two days — the first scene when Diana is in her drawing room, and then she hears a car pulling over and then she sees him arriving and then he’s in the hallway. Frank and I created quite a strict concept for that. You will see the shots are very precise. It’s very staged, there’s no improvisation within those moments. And then, when they actually talk to each other, there’s a big boundary between them. But towards the end, when he’s eating the nuts and she invites him to the kitchen, it all lightens up, and then we see humor. And then they actually get to the kitchen. So, the first beat is them talking about, like, “What shall we eat?” Because we realize, oh, Diana is not a good cook, [and] Charles neither.

So, what we did is a whole day. We would shoot them cooking together, improvising a lot, having fun and listening to music. In the final cut, this is all quite short, but we needed it. And it was very helpful that I was given a whole day to create that lightness, that fun between them, that I needed for the start of the big scene.

And the big scene, of course, is not one shot, but it’s very simple staging. Diana never leaves the table in that scene. Dominic, once, before he leaves [for good]. So what we did is, every shot we shot as a so-called master shot from the first second until the very end. We did many, many takes that day, and every take was kind of different because I wanted them to go all in and they loved doing that.

I remember we started filming on Diana in the morning and Dominic — he was not even on camera — would cry in almost every single take because he was so in it. And he was so supportive of her and that's something I haven't seen very often, especially [in] male actors, that they give all their emotion. [It’s] more difficult for men in general to access their emotions.

But she was so strong — I get emotional now just talking about it because it was so powerful how she went all in — but he was the same, even being not on camera. I know they hated me in the afternoon when they had to keep going and I wanted more and more and more, and they were exhausted because this is, I mean, this is so hard. We didn’t know each other that well, because it was our third day together. I remember Elizabeth kind of indicating she can’t do it anymore, but I knew I wasn’t there yet. 

Bowman: That’s almost where you need the character to be in a way.

Schwochow: Exactly, exactly. So then, I allowed them to do it like in theater where you don’t have to pause for the partner to come in with her or his dialogue. You can speak at the same time. And that created something new in the very late afternoon. We kept filming until the end. There was a lot of freedom. After those three days, the three of us were kind of friends because we went through the separation together. And of course, we talked a lot about our separations during those days and our experiences and how we got over them. That was a great experience for them, and I think actors are always very vulnerable in the process of creating a character like this, even though they had done so many scenes before. Very often they just don’t know if they’re doing a good job or not.

We all felt very, very positive about what we had done in those three days, and I was amazed. After that I felt like, “OK, I'm going home for Christmas.” 

Bowman: Best present.

Schwochow: Yeah. This thing has gone really, really well.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length. For more, check out the full episode of The Crown: The Official Podcast.