Meet Elizabeth Debicki, the latest performer to play Princess Diana

The Bavarian-born, English-raised daughter of a South African father and an English mother had just started showing the musical after two years of preparation. Diana at the Longacre Theater when its Broadway performance was postponed indefinitely due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“So this show is about a former princess called Diana,” Dewar told Theatermania at a February 2020 casting event. To her, he had love on the side called Camilla. And the story is how that relationship worked and what happened in the very public spotlight.

De Waal, who is 6 inches shorter than Diana’s 5 feet 10, read: Andrew Morton‘s 1992 biography of the Princess of Wales, I spent hours studying YouTube videos to get her quirks just right, including her voice and gestures, and the finishing school attitude.

“You don’t want to be told, ‘She looks like she’s wearing stripper heels,’ when you’re trying to portray a tough moment at home or breastfeeding a baby,” jokes De Waal. Said. New Yorker Of her observations of seeing the princess in motion in old video footage, the actress said, “She’s fighting, she’s surviving, but she’s completely relaxed with her shoulders and smiling at the camera.

Asked why she felt Diana’s story was worth telling, De Waal called it a “dream role” and told Broadway Inbound: Diana Because she’s still such a big part of our zeitgeist and part of our consciousness. ”

Diana will relaunch for Broadway and Netflix in 2021.