Elizabeth Debicki Wins Emmy for Playing Princess Diana

“The Crown” is going out on a high note.

Elizabeth Debicki won the Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series Emmy for her role as Princess Diana in Netflix’s “The Crown.” Debicki was nominated but did not win last year for the fifth season (the statue went to Jennifer Coolidge for “The White Lotus”).

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Debicki beat out fellow nominees Christine Baranski (“The Gilded Age”), Nicole Beharie (“The Morning Show”), Greta Lee (“The Morning Show”), Lesley Manville (“The Crown”), Karen Pittman (Mia Jordan), and Holland Taylor (“The Morning Show”).

The statue adds to “The Crown’s” massive Emmy haul over the years: Prior to Sunday’s ceremony, the six-season drama won 21 Emmys, including one for Emma Corrin, who portrayed a younger Princess Diana in Season 4 of the show.

“A thing that I always heard people say, that I felt was vital to the people who knew her to get across was yes, she had an incredibly tragic life in so many ways but her vitality and her humor her joy was so, so vivid,” Debicki said at an earlier Netflix event attended by IndieWire. “As soon as you start talking about [to people who knew her] you hear, “Oh, I was doing this speech and the entire time she was pinching my thumb! That was glorious! I loved that person.” It was really important to me as much as I could to thread that through … there’s something so child-like in the best way that she still had that sense of play. Which is remarkable, given how difficult everything was.”

“The Crown” lost some sparkle since it originally premiered in 2016, with IndieWire’s Ben Travers noting in his Season 6 review, “Peter Morgan‘s Netflix series has long chosen dark, dour avenues as its path through Royal history, but Season 6, in the first four episodes that constitute Part 1, is particularly ghoulish. Diana (Elizabeth Debicki) is its sole focus. The opening scene flashes forward to witness her tragic car accident, and the closing episode sees her sons, William (Ed McVay) and Harry (Luther Ford), walking behind her casket. No room is made for departure episodes, like “Aberfan,” where an event or constituent takes center stage as a way to reframe the evolving role of the Queen, and little room is made for the Queen herself … it’s unclear what Morgan’s guiding light will be for the final part of his final season. In part, because there’s no pure light left at all.”

Debicki joined an illustrious lineup of actresses who have put their spin on someone who was at one point arguably the most famous woman alive. In addition to Corrin, Kristen Stewart played the People’s Princess in Pablo Larraín’s 2021 film “Spencer,” and Naomi Watts put her spin on Diana in 2013’s “Diana.” There have also been several different TV movies about Diana, both before and after her death.

The 76th Primetime Emmy Awards were held Sunday, September 15 at 8 p.m. ET on ABC. The full telecast will be available to stream Monday on Hulu.

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