Forget the TV show, it’s going to make for quite the series finale to the British autumn. Only months into our post-Elizabethan world, Netflix’s megahit The Crown is returning for a fifth series of the addictive, splashy, soapy royal masquerade, with a final recast of the main players and more wigs than a Cher comeback tour.

It is similarly febrile, too. On a wet and fateful day in October, somewhere in the no man’s land between Liz and Rishi, the full series trailer dropped. Then jaws did. In Buckingham Palace and beyond, questions were barked: will our newly elevated King be dragged over the coals? Will the late Queen’s memory be left intact? Is now really the time to trawl over the phone-tapped sexy talk of a new Queen Consort? In short: popcorn at the ready.

Much of the attention has alighted on the person who, at the tail end of summer, I rushed through Highbury Fields, in North London, to meet. Elizabeth Debicki, an Australian 32-year-old with formidable talent and a steel trap mind, is a screen and stage actor of rare repute, and the latest brave soul to touch the live wire of playing Princess Diana. And in the 1990s no less – the era of Andrew Morton, superyachts, Panorama and pain. The decade she would define and that would destroy her.

In some ways, Debicki – who is as unflashy as she is intellectual – is an unusual fit for the part. Though, granted, not physically. She arrives at our sunny table outside a hyper-healthy local café selling delicious bowls that she likes, with her hair blonded, head to toe in linen with Dior sandals and a sprinkle of late summer jewellery. She was cast formally for The Crown’s series five and six two years ago, though it had been coming down the pipeline for a while. Initially, she tried out for a minor part in the show’s first season but says the producers immediately cried out “Di!” when she walked through the door. She says she “can’t see” a huge physical likeness – she runs a finger over her nose in profile, showing me the difference. But once the wig and kohl eyeliner went on, the effect was eerie and everyone agreed she simply had to play her.

Naturally, she was a little spooked at the prospect. “I think in the very beginning that did overwhelm me, the idea of this kind of collective [of Diana disciples] out there,” she says. “It’s a trap, right? A swampy quagmire. So, I would stand over the kitchen sink and say, ‘I cannot do this.’” But slowly she shed her own light Aussie tones and got into the accent – “Al’right” – to the point her sister and friends started picking it up too, and then the scripts arrived and she realised: “This isn’t meta. These are characters.”

“It’s a part,” she continues. Will viewers make the distinction? Each series of the show has been met with its share of pearl-clutching by some dustier MPs and the cake-and-eat-it tabloids, distraughtly imagining a viewership who are unable to separate fact from fiction. (A not entirely unreasonable conceit, to be fair; isn’t the show’s stock-in-trade making you sort of believe everything it’s telling you, like an especially juicy Vanity Fair piece?) But things have been flat out frantic this time around. Judi Dench even wrote a piece for The Times slamming the makers of it. [More at Source]

I’ve updated the gallery with photos of Elizabeth attending the 2022 Met Gala Celebrating “In America: An Anthology of Fashion”.

It’s been a breathless few months for Elizabeth Debicki and it shows no sign of slowing down. The Australian converses from her apartment in Brooklyn, where she’s having a momentary break from learning lines for her next role. She’s just finished filming on one of her biggest roles to date—playing Diana, Princess of Wales, in the upcoming season of The Crown— and next week, she’s back on set with James Gunn, filming the third installment of Guardians of the Galaxy.

Sitting on the floor, leaning against her sofa, and grabbing a quick slice of pizza, Debicki says she’s happy to be busy and among people again after a “surreal” lockdown spent largely alone. “At a certain point in the pandemic, I was super isolated,” Debicki says. She speaks slowly, in low tones, considering every question pensively, replying thoughtfully and reflectively. “It was before I’d gone back home to see my family and [because] of a number of factors, I went through this passage of time on my own. It’s incredible how your sense of self dissolves and becomes quite swampy and murky when you’re not touched or witnessed by people.”

The 31-year-old Australian actor, who was born in France and raised in Melbourne, has had little time for rest since landing a dream role straight out of drama school in 2013 in Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby—a role that won her the AACTA Award for Best Supporting Actress. A stint in theatre with Cate Blanchett followed, as did acclaimed roles in The Night Manager alongside Tom Hiddleston, the Steve McQueen-directed Widows, and Christopher Nolan’s Tenet—one of the first big films to hit theaters after lockdown.

Debicki, who recently debuted as the face of Dior Fine Jewelry, spent the majority of her twenties in front of a camera or audiences—without that in lockdown, she says, she lost her sense of self. “All of that illusion of you being self-sustaining in any way as an artist is shattered when suddenly people can’t congregate,” she considers. “I can do some acting in my living room like I’m currently doing, learning some lines. But what is it when I’m on my own? To actually do your craft, you have to be watched.”

Debicki elaborates how the lack of communication and contact with others took a toll. “When I was forced to stop, I remember it feeling absolutely devastating and I was full of internal chaos. I had this sense of like incoming entropy. I felt like it was all going to collapse because you build momentum [in your career], and you feel like momentum is the most important thing. I didn’t yet know how to stop, trust, rest, or recoup… It was telling the way that it hit me like this absolute, gut-wrenching thing. It all came crashing down and it was very confronting. You start to reassess and analyze.”

Even before the pandemic, Debicki says she was always prone to analyzing. After landing the role in Gatsby as Jordan Baker alongside Carey Mulligan, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Toby Maguire, Debicki says she walked away from that project anxious about where and when her next role would arrive. “I went back to my life after Gatsby thinking, ‘Was that it?’” She explains that she didn’t have another job for almost a year after filming and returned to a relatively normal existence in Sydney. “I remember going back to my very student-y life at that point. I was in a big house share and I’m not going to say it’s Withnail and I, but it was full of artists and people who were sculpting out of Styrofoam,” she laughs, “and everybody—apart from me—was smoking weed.”

Debicki shares that despite the success of her critically acclaimed turn in the film she “had to really hustle” for parts in the months that followed and often got rejected. “It was a very healthy kick-in-the-butt reality check,” Debicki says, reflecting on the period. She says it taught her the value of never taking her career for granted. “There are just no givens with this job,” she explains. “I would wrap on a big movie, and I would look at all of it wistfully, like… ‘Well, at least I got a shot! Thanks for having me!’” Debicki thinks it’s instilled in actors from “the beginning” about “how few and far between opportunity is” and a constant feeling of “you may not work again after [your current job]”— messages she’s taken to heart. “I guess I maybe did that to myself, to keep me working really hard.” [More at Source]

Elizabeth have finally graced us with a public appearance we can share online as she attended Dion Womenswear’s at Paris Fashion Week Spring/Summer 2022. I’ve updated the gallery with photos from the event.

“Iam wearing pajamas from the waist down,” admits Elizabeth Debicki, as we meet via video call for her PORTER interview. The Australian actor has been quarantining in Los Angeles since March and, after the initial “shock to the system”, she has “surrendered” to life in lockdown. “I haven’t baked any bread or read Tolstoy… I watched Normal People and Googled ‘how to make a spicy margarita’,” she says.

Despite suffering from a self-diagnosed case of ‘Zoom fatigue’, Debicki is still dismayed that she turned down social invitations before daily life became unrecognizable. “I can’t be the only one thinking: why the f*** didn’t I go to that dinner two weeks ago?”

After seven years of working non-stop, she concedes that “being forced to pause has been confronting”. It’s actually London that Debicki calls home, a place she feels is far-removed from LA and Hollywood; where she can hang out with friends, go to the theater and just generally “re-engage with the fabric of normality”. (However, over the last few years, as her career has kicked into overdrive, she has been splitting her time fifty-fifty between the two cities.)

Back in March, when it became clear that the global pandemic meant cities across the world were shutting down and international travel was grinding to a halt, Debicki made the decision to stay in the United States, recognizing that the London she loved would be off-limits for the foreseeable future. She’s reluctant to use the word “gratitude”, fearful that it could ring hollow, but acknowledges that, so far, this year has been all about “taking stock” and, ultimately, her outlook is positive: “I wake up every day and think: my needs are being met and my family is safe – how incredibly lucky, am I?’”

Debicki should be on the campaign trail right now, promoting Tenet, the latest release from celebrated British auteur Christopher Nolan. The secrecy that surrounds Nolan’s projects – which have included box office sensations Interstellar, Inception and Dunkirk – is legendary, and Debicki is not at liberty to discuss specifics. Asked whether this shroud of mystery adds to the sense that you’re creating something special on set, her answer is suitably enigmatic: “The extremity of the commitment and the focus – it’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen before.” Debicki’s own experience of filming sounds both personally and professionally formative. “Working with someone like Chris, it’s a golden ticket,” she adds, mercifully. “You know it’s going to be super challenging and you know there are going to be lessons for you. Sometimes you uncover them gently and sometimes they come and bite you on the ass – for me, it was a combination of both.”

She may have a self-deprecating sense of humor, but Debicki’s back catalogue is a testament not only to her talent, but also her seemingly endless range. In the last five years alone, she’s played an escort in Steve McQueen’s Widows (2018), an alien priestess in Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol. 2 (2017), an arms dealer’s mistress in The Night Manager (2016) and the femme fatale – albeit with a twist – in Guy Ritchie’s The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (2015). Although roles come at the mercy of directors, Debicki has been able to regain some agency in the process. “As an actor, your career is more defined by the things you say no to rather than the things you accept – you can carve your own path.” [More at Source]

To have everybody on the planet in their own homes, not able to see their friends, and collectively yearning for something – I think it’s very interesting for our species,” says the Australian actor Elizabeth Debicki, who is speaking to me in a slow, low voice over the phone from her house in Los Angeles. She has something of an other-worldly manner, part of what makes her so compelling on screen, and says she is in the garden, where she has “never spent so much time staring at lavender plants before. Brain restructuring itself.”

It is the early part of lockdown, before America’s cases of coronavirus start making it the worst-hit country in the world, and we were supposed to be meeting in the flesh to discuss her new film, Tenet, the much-hyped thriller from Christopher Nolan, who made Dunkirk, Interstellar and various Batmans, and which also stars Robert Pattinson, Michael Caine and Kenneth Branagh. But it has been held back until August, when we might be able to watch the 3D World War Three spy thriller in cinemas.

Wild as the project sounds, the experience of shooting it was an unexpected kind of preparation for the isolation of lockdown, explains Debicki, because much of her time was spent “living in an apartment in Estonia for months, a hotel in Bulgaria, not seeing anyone from my real life. So maybe, in a funny way, I’ve been a little bit in training for this for a while. I’ve spoken to a few actor friends of mine about this – perhaps we already have coping mechanisms for being away from our lives.”

Debicki’s previous film roles include Ayesha in the Marvel film Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2 (she will return for the third instalment); the hilariously forbidding villain in Guy Ritchie’s The Man from UNCLE; and playing Virginia Woolf in Vita and Virginia, but as for her part in Tenet, “It’s really tricky, I sort of can’t… I can’t really tell you anything about it,” she says. “I wish I could tell you more, but I can’t, and I’m sworn to secrecy.”

She can, however, discuss the brilliant BBC drama series The Night Manager, based on the John le Carré novel, in which she co-starred, in 2016. It still comes back to me in flashes: Hugh Laurie playing an arms dealer and Debicki his girlfriend, Jed. (At 6ft 3in, she is taller than him, which only added to their beguiling power dynamic.) I tell her it had me on the edge of my seat for six weeks. She agrees that it was “a good TV show, I’m very proud of that. Also, it delivered me Hugh Laurie, which… What a gem. What a treasure of a friend!”

Yet the real treasure from that production, as well as seeing Laurie play a tricksy bastard and Tom Hiddleston crisply outwit him in turn, is what Debicki did with her part. What seemed, on paper, like a rather typically thinly sketched female character (young, blonde, a few lines and fewer clothes) became something altogether more powerful in her performance. I could not take my eyes off her eyes: where were they looking, what did they see? What did she know, and what was she trying not to know? Apparently I wasn’t alone in this – a certain Mr Le Carré had to hand it to her after watching the series that she had created a better character than he had. [More at Source]

Elizabeth Debicki can keep a secret.

Maybe it comes from her stint in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, where she made a memorable appearance as a gold-painted alien in “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2.” Or from dabbling in the world of espionage in AMC’s adaptation of John le Carré’s spy thriller “The Night Manager.” Maybe it’s her elegant appearance, which might be why she is frequently cast as cool and aloof figures, something that started with her breakthrough roles as the alluring but deceptive Jordan Baker in “The Great Gatsby” and a stylish villain in “The Man From U.N.C.L.E.” But to hear the Australian actor tell it, convincing the world she’s an enigma is her greatest performance yet. “One time, Isabella Rossellini said I was mysterious, and it basically made my life because I’ve always wanted to be mysterious!” Debicki says with a laugh. “The truth is, I can’t keep up that act for more than four seconds. As soon as I get to know somebody, that narrative goes away pretty quickly.”
There’s an Australian word — “dagginess” — which Debicki says roughly translates to dorkiness. “Yeah, I’m a big dag,” she admits. “I always have been. I was that kid in school who would always write 500 words more than the assignment required.”

Debicki is calling from Los Angeles, where she’s been quarantining, and quickly proves her dag credentials by geeking out about her lockdown entertainment diet. She just watched Judd Apatow’s “The King of Staten Island,” which she adored. She’s also a huge fan of Trevor Noah, particularly how he’s been handling the coverage of the current protests with intelligence and humor. Asked if she’s been approached to do a comedy, she says, “People don’t approach me — remember the aloof thing?” she jokes. “Even before Fauci, it was always ‘Six feet away from Debicki!’ It’s too bad because I do love smart, fun comedy.”

“Oh, she’s got a great sense of humor,” concurs director Susanne Bier, who cast her in “The Night Manager,” where she says that off-screen, Debicki held her own in a battle of wits with Hugh Laurie. “She’s very good at diffusing her own elegance. It was funny to watch her wearing some gorgeous gown and then realize she left something in her trailer so she’d throw on running shoes and go racing off, still in this beautiful dress.”

Today, Debicki has a unique responsibility suited to her secrecy and befitting that mysterious persona: She is supposed to talk about her new film “Tenet,” without revealing much of anything. Originally slated to open July 14, the film has been pushed back twice due to the coronavirus and is now set to bow on Aug. 12. Because director Christopher Nolan commands his cast and crew to stay tight-lipped about his movies, it’s impossible to guess what’s in store. What has been gleaned from the trailer and early buzz is that “Tenet” features many of his trademarks: an impressive ensemble (in addition to Debicki, there’s John David Washington, Robert Pattinson, Michael Caine and Kenneth Branagh), big-budget spectacle, monochromatic suits and a sci-fi storyline having to do with … manipulating time, we think? The trailer features Washington learning how time can be inverted, with bullets appearing to load back into a gun after being fired. [More at Source]

Elizabeth and the cast of Tenet are on the upcoming July cover of Entertainment Weekly! Elizabeth looks amazing in the sneak peek we got about her character in the interview.

This is a mere sliver of what the movie is going to be,” Tenet producer Emma Thomas tells EW in the sweltering California desert this past October. If this is a sliver, writer-director Christopher Nolan’s latest film is going to be a doozy: On an expanse of dusty, sun-blasted terrain approximately 80 miles east of Palm Springs, an abandoned city of destroyed buildings and rubble has been constructed from scratch, a vast set populated by hundreds of extras in military camouflage uniforms. As the day progresses, and the temperature climbs, two of the film’s stars, John David Washington and Aaron Taylor-Johnson, repeatedly sprint down the road bifurcating the cityscape. Robert Pattinson, driving an armored military vehicle, is in hot pursuit; he’s followed by another truck holding both an IMAX camera and Nolan. The whole shebang is pretty much the most impressive Hollywood-financed flex you could hope to see. Even Nolan, 49, who has plenty of experience directing outsize movies — Interstellar, Inception, and the Christian Bale-starring Dark Knight trilogy — seems impressed. “The set would certainly rank as one of the largest-scale outdoor builds of all time,” he says. “It’s colossal.”

It is something of a surprise that EW has been invited to witness the proceedings today, given the secrecy surrounding the Warner Bros. film. When the news of Nolan’s new project starring Washington, Pattinson, and Taylor-Johnson broke in May 2019, the studio described the movie, with deliberate vagueness, as “an action epic evolving from the world of international espionage.” Today, Thomas remains extremely tight-lipped about the project, whose cast also includes Elizabeth Debicki, Clémence Poésy, Himesh Patel, Nolan regular Michael Caine, and Kenneth Branagh, who appeared in the director’s previous film Dunkirk. The producer politely declines to answer even the most basic of questions, such as what country are we supposed to be in now? “I know people think we’re secretive, and we’re generally not,” says Thomas, who is married to Nolan and has produced all his movies. “On this one there’s a little bit more…” Thomas pauses, then changes tack. “All will become clear!”

This air of mystery, combined with Nolan’s reputation as a creator of original blockbusters admired by audiences and critics alike, made Tenet one of 2020’s must-see releases the second it was announced. But in the months since EW’s set visit, the film has come to represent much more, as the coronavirus pandemic forced cinemas to close and almost every film scheduled for release prior to Tenet’s initial July 17 arrival to be postponed. While other summer movies were eventually pushed back or dispatched to streaming services, Tenet held firm. Warner Bros. and Nolan did eventually delay the film’s release, but only by two weeks, announcing on June 12 that the film will now come out July 31, a week after Mulan. Should those two movies prove successful, it will trigger the resumption of a normal — or normal-ish — summer movie season. “[Tenet is] kind of a unicorn of a movie anyway, because it’s not based on an IP thing,” says Pattinson. “But after all this — hopefully it will be a ridiculously overwhelming experience.” [More at Source]

Elizabeth, Claes Bang & Giuseppe Capotondi stopped by Build Studios New York yesterday to talk about the upcoming release of “The Burnt Orange Heresy”. Check out the video below then head to the gallery for the photo coverage.

 

Elizabeth finally decided to get out of hiding to start promoting her next upcoming movie The Burnt Orange Heresy… She was on Late Night with Seth Meyers last night where she fangirled with Seth over having Mick Jagger’s number.