Elizabeth Debicki on Queen Elizabeth’s Death and What Surprised Her Most About Princess Diana (Exclusive)

Elizabeth Debicki took her final bow as Princess Diana in season six Crownthus ending the series a year after the death of Queen Elizabeth.

Speaking to PEOPLE ahead of Thursday’s season 6, episode 1 premiere, Debicki, 33, says the hit Netflix drama inspired by the lives of the British royal family has drawn new “empathy” for the family since its 2016 debut.

“It’s been a long journey that people have been on with the show and I think that’s one of the beautiful things Crown was able to do, he opened up in this imaginary way, the very private lives of these public figures and created this great empathy, I think, that the audience can experience in relation to characters that maybe you didn’t know that much about before,” Debicki tells PEOPLE exclusively.

“Personally, I will say that the loss of the queen was a huge sadness. She was a highlight and I think she is greatly missed and loved in my adopted country and throughout the world,” the Australian actress added about Queen Elizabeth’s death. “So everyone’s intention has always been to tell the stories as authentically as we can and make these people as human as possible, make the characters as human as possible.”

Crown‘s Khalid Abdalla on whether Princess Diana and Dodi Fayed were ‘in love’ before fatal accident

Crown paused production when the monarch died aged 96 in September 2022, with presenter Peter Morgan saying Diversity then he was forced to change the ending of the show.

The cast has been known to change every two seasons to reflect the royal family’s aging through the decades. Debicki stars as the Princess of Wales in seasons 5 and 6, wrapping up Emma Corrin’s role in season 3. Netflix announced 2020 that Debicki will play Diana in seasons 5 and 6, and the star says she’s invested a lot in studying the people’s princess.

Elizabeth Debicki attends the Los Angeles premiere of Netflix’s The Crown on November 12.

Axelle/Bauer-Griffin/FilmMagic

“I came to this role-playing experience very naively. I didn’t know much. I had a kind of imprint in terms of who this person was, and I always imagined her as some kind of unusually beautiful princess and humanitarian figure,” says Debicki, who was 7 when Diana died.

Crown alludes to the tragedy in the final installment, though the moment of the crash is not shown — a twist previously confirmed by PEOPLE.

On August 31, 1997, the Princess of Wales and her lover Dodi Fayed traveled by car to Paris with a driver and a bodyguard. The four were being chased by paparazzi when their vehicle hit a support pillar of the Pont de l’Alma tunnel, overturned and stopped in front of oncoming traffic. Dodi and the driver died on the spot, while Diana died a few hours later.

Twenty-six years later, Debicki tells PEOPLE that she hasn’t lost weight for her role as Diana on the primetime streaming series.

Elizabeth Debicki as Princess Diana in the sixth season of The Crown on Netflix.

Daniel Escale/Netflix

Elizabeth Debicki says she is filming paparazzi scenes of Princess Diana in the Crown It Was Like ‘Being Underwater’ (Exclusive)

“I did a lot of research for this role. I probably spent about a year doing research and it just filled in all those pieces and made me have such a deep, deep respect and love for this person that I didn’t know that much about. The battle she went through in terms of media, public perception. I didn’t know things about divorce and how difficult it was for everyone in the family,” she says.

According to the actress, one thing she was delighted to discover was Princess Diana’s sense of fun.

“One of the things that surprised me, and I loved finding out, was that she had such a wonderful, very cheeky sense of humor, that she was so warm and human with people. That’s why she was so loved, and that was so necessary,” says Debicki about the royal rebel.

Princess Diana at a dinner at the British Embassy in Washington, DC in 1985.

Terry Fincher/Princess Diana Archives/Getty

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“She was a real pioneer in terms of her ability to move through perceptions or stigmas and really just use herself as a vessel to bring about great humanitarian change. She was prolific in that and gave us so much. I was constantly amazed at how far she moved the needle, whether it was mental health issues, AIDS or landmines,” he says of Diana’s lasting legacy. “When we lost her, the world lost a woman who could create incredible change and on the humanitarian front.”

The show closes with the premiere of the second part on December 14, told in six episodes. The latest saga is expected to conclude multiple storylines, from Queen Elizabeth (Imelda Staunton) pondering the future of the monarchy, then-Prince Charles (Dominic West) and Camilla (Olivia Williams) taking the next step in their relationship, while Prince William (Ed. McVey) falls in love with classmate Kate Middleton (Meg Bellamy) in college.

Crown season 6 episode 1 is now streaming on Netflix.

Fflyn Edwards as Prince Harry, Elizabeth Debicki as Princess Diana and Rufus Kampa as Prince William in Season 6 of The Crown on Netflix.

Daniel Escale/Netflix

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Source: HIS Education