The Crown's Imelda Staunton Has Her Say On Divisive Princess Diana 'Ghost' Scenes

Imelda Staunton has shared her feelings on one of the most divisive scenes in The Crown’s final season.

The award-winning Netflix drama’s sixth and final series was split into two parts, the first of which debuted on the platform last month.

One particular sequence in part one – in which a vision of Princess Diana appeared to both Prince Charles and Queen Elizabeth II after her fatal car crash in 1997 – generated a lot of conversation online, and divided critics right down the middle.

Speaking to HuffPost UK ahead of part two’s arrival on Netflix, Imelda explained: “My take on that was that these were thoughts in all our heads. They were thoughts.

“So, for my scenes, I never looked at Diana, because I just thought, ‘this is just in her head’. So that was the way I did my character.”

The Bafta winner added: “I had to make sure that I could interpret it in the way I felt that my character would.”

Imelda’s co-star Dominic West previously shared his feelings on the matter, telling HuffPost UK earlier this month: “I must admit, when I first read it I thought, ‘oooh, how’s that going to work? That’s quite daring’.

“But seeing it, and playing it, I sort of realised, ‘how else do you get across what Charles and the Queen are thinking about Diana’? You can have her in voiceover, but it’s just not as dramatic. So I think it works really well.”

Echoing Imelda’s feelings, he added: “I think it’s a very neat dramatic device to get across what The Crown is all about, which is, ‘what are the inner thoughts of these people who wear the crown?’.”

Meanwhile, Elizabeth Debicki, who plays Diana in The Crown’s final two seasons, previously insisted: “I’m really proud of that scene. I feel like it’s really honest and I just think that Dom’s work in the whole season, but particularly in that episode, is just astonishingly beautiful.”

All six seasons of The Crown are available to stream now on Netflix.