The Crown Season Four: Emma Corrin On Portraying Princess Diana’s Bulimia

Finally, after what feels like forever, The Crown is set to drop on Netflix next month. The next season of the series is set to cover Diana and Charles' relationship - and we'll also meet Gillian Anderson's Margaret Thatcher for the first time. Charles will continued to be played by Josh O'Connor, but in the series we'll meet Diana, played by newcomer Emma Corrin.

It has already been reported that the series is set to cover Diana's eating disorder in detail, with the tabloids reporting that it could cause Harry and William to fall out due to Harry's £112million deal with the streaming service. But, as Emma said speaking at an exclusive press conference, it's important the eating disorder is covered sensitively, yet properly. (The production company behind The Crown previously toldThe Independentthat 'producers worked closely with [eating disorder charity] Beat to ensure that their portrayal of Princess Diana’s bulimia in season four was both accurate to the disorder and sensitively handled.')

'It was quite difficult, because quite a lot of them were very heavy,' Emma said when asked about her most emotional scenes to film. 'Things that spring to mind are Diana's bulimia, which the series portrays. I knew that was going to be included and I said very early on that if it was going to be included, I would like to show it properly and not have it alluded to. I think it's important if these things are going be shown then they're done right.' She added that the scenes were 'quite intense' to film.

Speaking about her eating disorder to journalist Martin Bashir during a 1995 interview, Diana described it as 'like having a pair of arms around you, but it's temporary. Then you're disgusted at the bloatedness of your stomach, and then you bring it all up again. And it's a repetitive pattern which is very destructive to yourself.'

Also speaking at the press conference Emma spoke about how she researched the role, saying that her biggest help was the documentary Diana: In Her Own Words and The Crown's research department which presented her with 'a huge lever-arched file, all cross referenced'.

'I started watching a lot of documentaries and ordered a lot of biographies,' she explained. 'But actually, I very quickly realised that you can get quite quickly saturated by that amount of information. And also, because people can speculate endlessly, no one can actually know anything. And so I kind of parked that very quickly. There was one documentary called, Diana In Her Own Words, which she narrates. I must have watched honestly, about 100 times. And I think that was just fantastic.'

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