![Princess Diana as portrayed on 'The Crown'](https://deadline.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/princess-diana-the-crown.jpg?w=681&h=383&crop=1)
Elizabeth Debicki‘s latest — and second — Emmy nomination for The Crown is both delightful and bittersweet, she told Deadline Wednesday morning, following the nominations announcement.
“I miss playing that part,” she said of her Princess Diana role in Netflix show The Crown, which received a grand total of 18 nominations. “I miss the people, and I knew that would inevitably happen, but the kind of work that we as actors and heads of department got asked to do, the bar we were asked to meet, and the complexity of the work was just so beautifully satisfying to do, and to try and meet the challenge of that show and its legacy and of all the incredible performances that came before.”
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Debicki has felt the weight and importance of taking on playing Diana in the long-running series. Known as ‘the people’s princess’, Diana was so deeply loved that she is still mourned across the world, although it has been almost 27 years since her untimely death. The most consistent fan reaction Debicki has encountered has actually been requests for hugs, she said.
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“I realized that the work that we have done in this show brings people really close to their own memories, and that’s a really unique kind of thing to feel a part of and also be witness to… I’ve had people be quite emotional, and then usually it ends with someone saying, ‘Can I give you a hug?’ It’s really beautiful and quite moving.”
Next up, Debicki is set to star with Zazie Beetz in the Iuli Gerbase-directed This Blue is Mine. The film shoots in Columbia starting next month, with Debicki as Ivy — the mysterious girlfriend of Arthur (Dennis Quaid) a writer on vacation with his daughters, one of whom, Connie, is played by Beetz. As the family drama amps up, Ivy tells Connie she is an alien and wants Connie to come with her back to her planet. The question being, is this a mental health crisis or is Ivy actually from a distant galaxy…
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“It’s quite unusual,” Debicki says of the film. “It has a real darkness in it, but also this real reach for this real curiosity about humans and about human behavior and what we do to each other and how we can redeem that. And it’s got this really beautiful dark humor in it, which I just adore totally. I really am excited to play that part. I think it’s kind of sexy and weird and funny and very dark, which is a great combination for me.”
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“It’s so different from the work I was doing before, and I think that’s probably what I’m looking for now,” she added. “It’s been a kind of interesting experience post-something as mammoth as The Crown to just let everything go quiet again for a little bit and try to listen to my instincts about what I really feel like doing, and what feels challenging to me in a totally different direction.”
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