It’s a Friday morning in Spain when Elizabeth Debicki Zooms in from the Mallorca set of The Crown, where the Australian actor is currently filming season six as Diana, Princess of Wales. “I’m in a little flat with a very interesting clock on the wall,” she deadpans, referring to her basic holiday rental that’s dwarfed by a frameless timepiece, comprised of numerals painted directly onto the white wall over her shoulder. “The first time I came here was doing The Night Manager, which I was horrified to count backwards and realise was seven years ago,” the 32-year-old continues, blue eyes sparkling behind oversized tortoiseshell frames. Lifting a wine glass, she adds, “This is a protein shake, in a wine glass, because we’re out of normal glasses. Please don’t judge.”
Right now, life for Debicki is somewhat topsy-turvy and time is clearly on her mind. “It’s such a strange experiment, you come to beautiful places that people only come to have a lovely vacation, and you work really hard and funny hours. The first week you’re like, ‘I can have a nice lunch and do my work. I’m totally capable.’ Then after the third week, you’re like this nocturnal animal. You’re so tired and you see people having dinner under your building and you’re like, ‘Oh, yeah. Restaurant.’ It’s such a weird experience.”
Production on season six is now back into overdrive after a respectful pause for the passing of Queen Elizabeth II. “We had just gotten to Barcelona, and I think we’d shot a day,” she recalls. “Of course, we paused, which was the right thing to do. It was very surreal, very sad and very sobering for everybody. I suddenly felt very homesick,” she shares, referring to her parents, and younger brother and sister, back in Melbourne. “I could tell it was really hard for people to be away from their families,” she continues, explaining that 95 per cent of The Crown’s crew are English. “Grief, as we all know, sneaks up in the oddest of ways. All the crew and cast stayed in the same hotel, and everyone just kept passing each other. It’s strange being on location because it’s liminal space where you don’t have to do your laundry, but you’re not at work and you don’t know what to do. I spent a lot of time watching that queue,” she says of the line to visit the monarch Lying-in-State, which was 10 miles long and a 24-hour wait at its peak. “It was just the perfect snapshot of what English people are and [are] capable of. It was very moving.”
After years commuting between Sydney and London in her 20s for many a film set and to tread the boards at Britain’s National Theatre, Debicki, who was born in Paris but raised in Melbourne, has been based in North London since 2018. “I miss them really a lot all the time,” she says of her close-knit family. Her parents, both professional dancers, ignited her passion for the arts. “But I guess I’ve gotten used to missing people. That’s the expat’s lot. When I land in Australia, the wash of familiarity, comfort and nostalgia is extremely settling for me. But London feels like my home now.”
Debicki was last back in Melbourne in August for a surprise visit for her birthday. “I just really wanted to see my dad’s face, and he gave me what I really needed,” she smiles. “He was watering something in the front yard and I jumped out of the corner. My sister was filming it. My mum opens the door with this all-knowing look and she’s like, ‘I knew you were here. I felt it!’ I was like, ‘Oh, come on. Give it to me, I just flew across the ocean!’” [More at Source]