Yahoo News The Crown’s Luther Ford worries Prince Harry will think his performance is ‘terrible’
The Netflix show returns on 14 December
Watch: The Crown's Luther Ford shares his reservations about knowing what Prince Harry will think of his performance:
The Crown actor Luther Ford will soon make his debut as Prince Harry in the final episodes of the Netflix royal drama, but he admits to Yahoo UK he isn't sure he wants to know what his real-life counterpart thinks of his performance in case he believes he's "terrible".
The actor joins Ed McVey in portraying sibling Prince Harry and William during their teenage years and early adulthood, as the series explores their experiences in the wake of their mother Princess Diana’s death in 1997.
Of all the British royal family, Prince Harry is the only one to have some experience with the show, having told James Corden in 2021 that he’d seen it and "was more comfortable with it" than the way in which his family have been reported on in the news. But whether he’ll tune into the show’s final episodes to see how he has been depicted is another thing entirely.
“I'm not gonna say no,” Ford admits when asked if he’d like to know what Prince Harry thinks of his performance.
“I won’t say no, but I don't think I will know. I’m not holding my breath for it, I don't know. I think it would be odd to [happen], it'd be weird."
"He's probably like, 'he's terrible,'"Luther Ford
McVey added his thoughts on the royals reaction to the show, saying: "Well, I can imagine that they're looking at it through a very different lens, and so you have to understand that and respect that."
The actors portray the princes at a particularly vulnerable point in their lives, but both McVey and Ford were keen not to let what has happened in the public eye in real life sway their performances of them, it was more about what the show's creator Peter Morgan had written in the script.
Ford explains: "I guess you don't want to lean into that [vulnerability] and play that because if an audience is going to watch it with hindsight, or retrospect, and interpret things a different way I don't think it was on our minds to set that up.
"Because ultimately we're focusing on the timeline within the scripts and where they are at that point with their relationship."
"I think there's so much media [about the Royal family] that that's quite overwhelming and it's easier actually to kind of be like 'maybe I won't deal with that.'"Luther Ford
McVey went on to say that Morgan's script interpreted the prince's relationship "so beautifully" that it felt right not to come to the characters with hindsight.
"[It's about] trying to understand what's going on for these characters that are written and where's their relationship? And what are the relationships in the show? And focus more on that and just trying to connect to it as much as possible," he says.
"I mean fundamentally you're seeing a family grieving, and most families will have some understanding of what that feels like and looks like. You're not trying to depict something for other people to understand because they may have lived through it or understand it very closely.
"You're like, what is going on in this script and how can I as an actor interpret what that is and connect to it, and then do that."
Still, portraying such important figures in British history was a daunting task for the actors, as McVey says: "It definitely gives a sense of responsibility and energy towards doing your job well, but also you can't think about it too much because it gets debilitating.
"For me, [it was about] just trying to let it wash over you and then wash away and then you can just breathe life into the words on the page."
The Crown season 6 part 2 premieres on Netflix on Friday, 14 December.
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