Dominic West says he took inspiration from Prince Harry’s memoir, Spare, for his performance in season 6 of The Crown.
In Spare, Prince Harry recounts the morning that his father, King Charles III, woke him up to tell him that his mother, Princess Diana, had died.
“Pa didn’t hug me,” Harry writes. “He wasn’t great at showing emotions under normal circumstances. But his hand did fall once more on my knee and he said, ‘It’s going to be okay.’”
West told Variety he considers Spare to be a “gift.”
“I bought it immediately, and I think it did slightly affect the way we played that key scene where he wakes Harry up,” West said.
West also said he tried for a more passionate version of the then-Prince Charles for the final season of the series, saying he felt it was truer to the character.
“I thought that was a more honest portrayal of him,” West said. “We had a very interesting discussion with someone who had witnessed him with his sons, and she did slightly put him right. She said, ‘What I saw was a closeness.’ And then, of course, Harry’s book comes out and we didn’t know what to think!”
All six seasons of The Crown are available to stream on Netflix.