The Crown’s Emma Corrin thinks Princess Diana was ‘so queer’ in ‘many ways’
Emma Corrin played Princess Diana in The Crown. (Getty/Netflix)
The Crown actress Emma Corrin believes Princess Diana was queer because she was the ‘other’ in her family.
Speaking to the Sunday Times, the actress, who starred as the late Princess of Wales in series four of the Netflix show, discussed their own gender identity, and explains why so many queer actors feel drawn to Di.
“In many ways Diana was so queer; she was the definite ‘other’ within the family and always embraced ‘outsiders’,” Corrin told the newspaper.
Princess Diana’s legacy as a humanitarian is upheld by her determined allyship to the LGBTQ+ community during the HIV/AIDS epidemic, famously shaking hands with a patient in hospital at a time when homophobia was rife in the UK.
Corrin said when she found out she was cast she: “Felt so many things at once. An excitement, a fear for the role and fear for how my life would change. But it was so exhilarating.”
Emma Corrin plays Princess Diana in The Crown. ( Netflix)
Speaking about their own queerness and gender identity, Emma Corrin said their first queer relationship was “like being born a bit.”
“Opening my eyes to this whole other way of life that felt so right. And so beautiful.
“And in quite a terrifying way it called into question everything I’d been assuming about myself and about the way I loved people before and how I felt.”
On their identity as non-binary, they say while people are generally good at respecting their pronouns, they understand how tricky it can be.
“Pronouns are a strange thing in themselves. It’s a weird little bit of language that comes to mean so much, and really struggles to reflect anyone’s true feeling of self.”
They continue, explaining the use of they/them rather than she/her matters less with people who know them well, like close friends or family, because “it’s about feeling seen”.
Emma Corrin, Harry Styles and David Dawson in My Policeman. (YouTube/Prime Studios)
Emma Corrin also stars alongside Harry Styles in new queer drama My Policeman.
It follows Styles, a closeted policeman, Corrin, his wife, and David Dawson, a museum curator and love interest, in a time-jumping love triangle between two periods when attitudes towards homosexuality had evolved drastically.
Read our review here.
