How The Crown’s Young Royals Landed the Roles of William, Kate and Harry — Including One Whose Mom ‘Screamed’

As Crown nearing the final stretch, the stars reflect on their path to royalty.

Season six stars Ed McVey, Meg Bellamy and Luther Ford — who portray Prince William, Kate Middleton and Prince Harry — joined Entertainment Weekly CEO Patrick Gomez on Saturday at a special screening and discussion event for Netflix’s Emmy-winning drama.

Before fans enjoyed a custom charm bar and plush Crown-inspired photo booth at the Whitby Hotel in New York, the cast shared their tales of royal origins.

McVey, 24, first heard about the chance to play the Prince of Wales, 41, through an open casting call.

Of course, such a role did not fall easily. “It was a very long process. It took about four or five months and about six or seven auditions,” the actor recalls. “As it went on, the casting team, Robert Stern and Kate Bone, got more and more, I mean, excited. And then when that happens, you get more excited, but then you fall more and more in love with the role.”

After taking one final chemistry test, McVey just had to wait – and wait… and wait. “I didn’t hear anything for three weeks and at that moment I was really imagining my life, imagining all this, and then I didn’t hear anything for three weeks and then I thought, Oh, I must have ruined it. And then when I got the call, it was mostly a relief, I told my mom and she screamed, and that was nice.”

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Bellamy, 21, was already in the audition process when she met McVey in hopes of becoming Kate to his William. Unlike her leading man, the actress admits, “at the time I didn’t have an agent or anything.”

McVey interjects, “He knows now,” and Ford also repeats, “Oh, he knows now.”

And Ford accidentally got the opportunity of a lifetime. “I was at university,” he recalled. “I didn’t go to drama school. I’d never acted before. I didn’t know I was going to be an actor or it wasn’t in the plan. And my brother’s girlfriend sent it to me and said, you know, ‘Why don’t you do it? You’re a ginger.'” ( He qualifies his resemblance to the Duke of Sussex, 39: “I didn’t think I looked like him in person.”)

He continues: “I auditioned, I guess on a whim. And then, because it was so late in the process, they took quite a long time to find someone, and I got the part in about three weeks. And then we started shooting a month later , and it’s been a year, so it’s definitely changed a lot of things.”

Kate Middleton wears a tiara while her colleague from Crown He’s coming to the red carpet

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Given that Ford plays Harry during his party-filled teenage and young adulthood era, fitting his entry into the historical drama seems to have been a bit of a whirlwind.

Bellamy, on the other hand, was preparing to play the thoughtful and ever-poised future Princess of Wales.

“I think we’ve all done a lot of research and there’s so many different departments that can help you with that kind of thing. So there’s a research team and I remember I had a Zoom with them and of course they have scripts and then you kind of compare the research that matches the time . And yes, I’ve worked with a vocal coach a few times, William Conker, and a movement coach, Wally Bennett, who is great,” she shared.

“And then I just watched her all day, all night. I would literally, I mean I would look a little crazy. I would read a book about her out loud in her voice in the costume they sent me, move like her, so I probably look like a psychopath for three months “, she joked, “but we hope so [worth it].”

Steve Eichner/Shutterstock

McVey also painstakingly prepared to play the future king.

“There’s definitely a point and I’ve struggled a bit to find it,” he admitted. “Where you have to believe that you’ve done enough. I went through the first few good weeks on set still trying to prove that somehow I’d done the work or I’d done the research and I’m still trying to get auditions for the part even though I would somehow get it, even though [the fact I’d been cast] It didn’t really make much sense to me.”

However, he eventually found his way. “There really is a point, and I think it just came with the fatigue… you stop trying. And I think when I stopped trying to do it and I trust the amazing script that we had, it makes it a lot easier because you actually start listening and you actually start responding instead of saying, ‘Oh, this is how the scene should be and this is how his voice sounds’ and all that stuff. ‘This is how he moves.’ Instead of worrying about all that stuff, you’ve done it all and you can kind of let it go and just say these amazing words that you’ve been given.”

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Starring opposite well-known actors including Dominic West (playing King Charles III when he was still the Prince of Wales), Imelda Staunton (Queen Elizabeth II), Jonathan Pryce (Prince Philip) and Leslie Manville (Princess Margaret), Ford can’t lie that on his first performance came with some trepidation.

“I think I had this idea that the atmosphere on set was going to be really tense and stressful,” he admitted, before quickly noting, “and it’s really not. I think because the show is in its last and sixth season, it’s such a close team in terms of the crew and the cast working together. So it definitely felt like you were coming into something that was very established and felt like a family. … It was a really nice dynamic between us. It was scary and it was definitely scary [to work with these legends]. But they were nice. It was good, it was good.”

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Part 1 of CrownThe sixth and final season of the series is now streaming on Netflix, with the final four episodes of the series coming out on Thursday.

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Source: HIS Education