The Crown actor Dominic West has shed light on what he has sacrificed to star in the Emmy-award-winning Netflix drama.
The 54-year-old portrayed [a then] Prince Charles in seasons five and six of the show to critical acclaim.
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He has however admitted that it’s likely he has now lost out on the opportunity to be knighted for his acting service to the country, despite his more than 30-year-long career.
The candid admission came during an interview with journalist Nihal Arthanayake on BBC Radio 5 where the actor was quizzed on any potential “losses” he had faced as a result of his role as the royal.
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“I supposed having to forgo the British Empire Medal that I might have got for services to acting,” Dominic admitted.
“It was alright for [Prince Philip actor Jonathan Pryce], who had already been knighted.”
This isn’t the first time that the actor has spoken publically about his relationship with the royal family.
In November 2022, insider sources revealed that the English actor was allegedly “so concerned” about how the royal family would perceive his portrayal of Charles – especially after the character of Charles was received not so well in previous seasons – that he offered to resign from his role as an ambassador for The Princes Trust charity due to a “conflict of interest”.
Shockingly, West did hear back from the now King Charles III personal secretary with a message that was every bit as blunt as it was “relaxed”.
Speaking to Radio Times, West said Charles’ reaction was along the lines of: “You do what you like, you’re an actor, it has nothing to do with us”.
“I think that’s probably how (Charles) regards it,” West added, suggesting the new monarch was able to distinguish that this is just a job for him and that the show, whilst based on real life, was still a drama.
And the cherry on top for this whole debacle? Charles even declined West’s offer to resign as an ambassador to the charity he first established as a young man in the 1970s.
Season five of The Crown covered some of the most highly publicised (and criticised) moments from Charles’ life, including the now infamous ‘tampon-gate’ phone call to Camilla, now Queen Consort. At the time of the R-rated incident, Charles was still married to Diana and would be for another three years until 1996.
West said his views about the infamous incident had changed after making The Crown, describing the R-rated conversation as “sweet” rather than “filthy.”
“My memory of it is that it was sort of filthy and dirty and really embarrassing, but actually, in the playing of it, it was much more like two middle-aged lovers being sweet to each other,” West said.
“If any one of us had our intimate phone conversations reproduced verbatim in every newspaper in the world, imagine what that’s like.
“Imagine how awful that is.
“It just strikes you as being a horrible breach of privacy that no one should have to suffer.”
The actor, also known for his roles in The Wire, Stateless, and The Affair, said he felt sympathy for both Charles and Camilla in the wake of the scandal.
At the time of the incident in 1993, the English press published a full transcript of the six-minute-long telephone conversation.
“It was just an intensely personal conversation, and what was sordid was the prurient interest in it,” West said.
Given his stance on the matter, West has found himself a royal fan in none other than Camilla herself, caught on the record saying that West was the “perfect choice” to play her husband, even jokingly referring to him as “your majesty” when she saw the actor at a party in 2021.
