Having success as an actor also means being in the public eye. That this is not always a pleasant experience, had also Prince Charles actor Josh O’Connor from the Netflix hit “The Crown” find out.
The historical series “The Crown” is not only one of the longest-lived – season 6 is currently in the works – but also one of Netflix’s most successful in-house productions, which has won numerous prestigious awards. The series about the British royals has won Golden Globes and Emmys, among others, and the reviews have also been very good so far. Seasons 1-4 have each received around 90 percent positive reviews on the review aggregation site Rotten Tomatoes, and season 4 has even received 96 percent. Only season 5 falls a bit with 71 percent.
But the fact that the drama series is so successful also has its downsides – and Josh O’Connor, actor of the young Prince Charles in seasons 3 and 4, talked about them with GQ: “It was a shitty [‘fucked-up’] time. It had such a big impact, people were stopping me. You want to be in things that are successful and looked at, but I think we sometimes underestimate how powerful just the slightest loss of anonymity can be. “
Josh O’Connor as Prince Charles
He would have preferred to just keep doing what he was doing in his career before “The Crown.” But at least since he won an Emmy for playing Prince Charles in 2021, O’Connor has been able to forget his former quiet acting life – and even then talked to Variety about how the huge public interest was a huge burden.
“I spent, if you add it all up, two years of my life doing the show. And then you talk about it for the rest of your life. It’s a weird dynamic: You spend more time talking about your work than actually doing it.”
O’Connor doesn’t regret his role at all, saying working on “The Crown” was the best two years. But even after his Emmy win, he was looking forward to moving on and talking about other things.
What Josh O’Connor will be talking about in the future, at least as soon as the strike by U.S. actors* ends: Luca Guadagnino’s love story sports drama “Challengers”, which will be released on April 25, 2024. In it, O’Connor and Mike Faist not only compete against each other on the tennis court, but also both vie for the favor of Zendaya.
