Like father, like son! Dominic West, who is set to play Prince Charles on season 5 of The Crown, will be joined on screen by his son Senan West.
According to Variety, Senan, 13, will portray Prince William in the final episodes of the season as the show covers the royal family through the 1990s. Elizabeth Debicki will play the late Princess Diana, taking over the role from Emma Corrin.
Dominic, for his part, is playing Charles, 73, after Josh O’Conner‘s previous take on the Duke of Cornwall. Imelda Staunton will play Queen Elizabeth II after Olivia Colman previously reigned over the role and Jonathan Pryce will portray the late Prince Philip.
Season 5 of the hit Netflix series will cover the years leading up to Diana’s tragic passing in 1997, including her relationships with Hasnat Khan and Dodi Al-Fayed and the BBC Panorama interview with Martin Bashir. Al Fayed, who was with Diana during the fatal car crash, will be played by Khalid Abdalla.
The casting news comes after Jemima Khan announced her exit as a consultant from The Crown due to their portrayal of Diana.
“It was really important to me that the final years of my friend’s life be portrayed accurately and with compassion, as has not always happened in the past,” Khan, 47, said in an interview with The Sunday Times earlier this month.
After joining the series because of her connection to Diana, Khan worked on “the outline and scripts from September 2020 until February 2021.”
“In 2019, [creator] Peter Morgan asked me to cowrite on the fifth series of The Crown, particularly those episodes which concerned Princess Diana’s last years before she died,” she shared. “After a great deal of thought, having never spoken publicly about any of this before, I decided to contribute.”
The England native decided to leave The Crown after developing issues with how Diana’s life was being portrayed.
“When our cowriting agreement was not honoured, and when I realized that particular story line would not necessarily be told as respectfully or compassionately as I had hoped, I requested that all my contributions be removed from the series and I declined a credit,” Khan said at the time.
In response to the claims, Netflix issued a statement to the Times, saying, “Jemima Khan has been a friend, fan and a vocal public supporter of The Crown since season 1. She has been part of a wide network of well-informed and varied sources who have provided extensive background information to our writers and research team — providing context for the drama that is The Crown. She has never been contracted as a writer on the series.”
Although William, 39, has not commented on The Crown, his brother Prince Harry previously admitted to watching the series.
“They don’t pretend to be news. It’s fiction. … But it’s loosely based on the truth,” Harry, 37, said on The Late Late Show With James Corden in February. “It gives you a rough idea about what that lifestyle, what the pressures of putting duty and service above family and everything else, what can come from that. I’m way more comfortable with The Crown than I am seeing the stories written about my family, or my wife, or myself.”
The Duke of Sussex noted that he would like to see Damian Lewis play him on the show.
