Dominic West revealed he barred his son, Senan West, from reprising his role as a young Prince William in “The Crown” because he was uncomfortable with the storyline of Season 6.
The 54-year-old actor — who currently plays Prince Charles on the hit Netflix drama — recognized that his 15-year-old son was “great” as a teenage William during Season 5 but didn’t want him coming back for the final installment.
“I didn’t really fancy doing the scene at Balmoral [Castle], telling a boy his mother has died,” Dominic — who shares Senan with wife Catherine FitzGerald — told the Radio Times, per The Times.
“They invited Senan back because he did such a good job, and he was great, but I did slightly balk at that. It was unfair of me because he did want to do it, but I wouldn’t have fancied that, to be honest.”
Because of this, Sean was replaced by Rufus Kampa for the first part of Season 6. Ed McVey will then take on the role for Part 2, which will be released Dec. 14, and focus on the blossoming relationship between William and Kate Middleton.
Part 1 of Season 6 covers the death of William and Prince Harry’s mom, Princess Diana. She died in a 1997 car accident in Paris at the age of 36.
At the time of her death, William and Harry were staying at Balmoral Castle in Scotland on holiday with their father and grandparents, Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip.
William and Harry, who were 14 and 12 respectively, were told the news of their mother’s death by Charles.
The Duke of Sussex, now 39, gave further details on how Charles, 75, told him of Diana’s death in his scathing 2022 memoir, “Spare.”
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“Pa didn’t hug me. He wasn’t great at showing emotions under normal circumstances, how could he be expected to show them in such a crisis?” Harry wrote.
“His hand did fall once more on my knee and he said, ‘It’s going to be OK.’ That was quite a lot for him. Fatherly, hopeful, kind. And so very untrue.”
In the same interview, Dominic revealed that he found sympathy for Charles after playing him.
“In some ways, he was a villain of the piece, or of the Diana story,” he explained. “As in any divorce, there are two sides, and we got to see what Charles’s side was.
“This series is much more about a man facing the imperatives of being a father. It’s not about him, it’s about his kids. It made it much clearer to me what I had to portray.”
Charles had long been seen as the anti-hero during the last years of Diana’s life, especially as his longtime affair with his now-wife, Queen Camilla, was confirmed.
Fans of the royal family, and particularly those of Diana, were furious at the way he had treated her, blaming him for the late royal’s unhappiness.
And despite their best efforts to portray the royal family as accurately as possible, its real-life members refuse to watch it, especially Harry.