Dominic West offered to resign as a Prince’s Trust ambassador but was turned down

Every actor on The Crown has a different way of handling the outpouring of scorn and angst from Buckingham Palace and the British media. Jonathan Pryce is quite angry that the show is being criticized in any way. Imelda Stauton keeps insisting that she has the utmost respect for QEII and the monarchy. Elizabeth Debicki wants to simply avoid discussing the controversy altogether. Dominic West – who plays Prince Charles – has a completely different strategy and it’s shady as hell. West keeps insisting that Charles is also a victim, that he has the utmost sympathy for Charles, that poor Charles couldn’t do anything right. Hilariously, West is also spilling tea about what Camilla and Charles have said to him personally. It’s amazing.

As it turns out, Dominic West had to deliberate whether to take the role given his own personal connection with Charles, who he has met on multiple occasions – and he has also shared a cheeky comment that Charles’s wife Camilla, now Queen Consort, made to him after he was cast.

West told this week’s Radio Times magazine that when he saw Camilla at a party in 2021, she cheekily called him “Your Majesty”, appearing to signal her approval or acceptance of the casting.

West also revealed in this interview that upon deciding to take the role on, he offered his resignation as an ambassador for the Prince’s Trust, in case it would be perceived as a conflict of interests considering Charles’s role with the charity. West revealed that the resignation was refused in a letter from Charles’s private secretary and that the letter said, in essence, “You do what you like, you’re an actor. It’s nothing to do with us.”

West explained: “I think that’s probably how [Charles] regards it. I’ve been in a line to shake his hand a few times and it’s fascinating. It’s very useful to meet the character you’re playing, obviously.”

[From Radio Times]

Narrator’s voice: that is not how Charles regards it. Charles is literally masterminding a Palace smear campaign against The Crown. Charles is terrified that ten hours of prestige streaming programming will blow up his limited “popularity.” Dominic also spoke to the Guardian about the “tampon phone call” and Charles’s bad energy in the 1990s. I love West’s enthusiasm.

On the tampon phone call: “My memory of it is that it was sort of filthy and dirty and really embarrassing, but actually, in the playing of it, it was much more like two middle-aged lovers being sweet to each other. If any one of us had our intimate phone conversations reproduced verbatim in every newspaper in the world, imagine what that’s like. Imagine how awful that is. It just strikes you as being a horrible breach of privacy that no one should have to suffer.”

West insists that he has sympathy for Charles: “I have such a deep sense of sympathy with Charles. In many ways he had witnessed how his position had destroyed Diana, and he was having to see that same thing happen to Camilla. I think that’s the hardest part about being the Prince of Wales…. There was nothing Charles could do, no PR stunt he could pull, no PR adviser who was going to make his position any better. He was on a losing ticket the whole time. Peter was keen to show that, and how he really couldn’t do anything right at the time.”

[From The Guardian]

It can’t actually be both – Charles’s “position had destroyed Diana” AND “there was nothing Charles could do.” Charles was the one actively destroying Diana. He was actively cheating on her and painting her as a mad woman, a crazy harpy who would not give him a moment’s peace. And West is right, it always blew back on Charles – when Diana was around, the people were always on her side. Anyway, while I’ve never been a Dominic West fan, I f–king love the way he’s promoting The Crown. It’s hilarious.

Photos courtesy of Netflix/The Crown.

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17 Responses to “Dominic West offered to resign as a Prince’s Trust ambassador but was turned down”

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  1. C-Shell says:

    Playing Charles in The Crown was both a brilliant career move on West’s part and a brilliant casting move on Peter Morgan’s/Netflix’s part. I can’t imagine a more perfect representative or spokesperson for a cheating spouse. In the guise of sympathy, West is previewing CIII’s worst behavior, and getting our interest whetted! It’s glorious!

  2. Miss Owlsyn says:

    This is legimately something I’ve wondered about, how British actors on the Crown (and I think everyone cast as the royal family has been from England proper, right? Not any Scottish or Welsh actors even?) feel about portraying these national public figures. It would have to be, at the very least, really flipping weird.

    Anyway, Netflix’s fabulous free advertising continues.

  3. C says:

    What is coming out of his mouth is a mess. But in a way it’s good, because he’s perfected the obliviousness that would have been needed for him as an actor to portray Charles as callous and unintelligent as he really was and is.

  4. Ace says:

    I’ve never listened to the tampon conversation but I’ve read it and I actually agree with West in that it didn’t seem scandalous, just two lovers talking silly about sex. What makes it gross is who those two people are and how they were hurting others with their relationship, so any sympathy I could have for them having this private conversation become public disappears because they are awful people who treated Diana terribly.

  5. Eurydice says:

    Well, sure. Bad guys are always the heroes in their own story. If he’s going to inhabit the character of Charles he also has to embrace Charles’ belief that he was a prisoner of love. And now I’m humming that song from The Producers – “Prisoners of love, blue skies above, can’t keep our hearts in jail…”

  6. Chantal says:

    Ugh. Is he angling for a knighthood? Why would he stand in line, more than once, to shake C-Rex’ hand? Was Cams flirting? How is he supposed to perform any new acting roles with his head so far up Chuck’s butt? So many questions…

  7. Becks1 says:

    :Narrator’s voice: that is not how Charles regards it.

    For some reason that just has me HOWLING. It is not how Charles regards it, at all, LOL. But it seems someone over there with a grain of sense prevailed long enough to keep West on as a Prince’s Trust ambassador.

    And I do love how he is promoting this. There is something so shady in how he keeps talking about the tampon conversation. No no no, it really wasn’t as sordid and filthy as you remember, but watch the show so you understand what I mean lol.

    • Nic919 says:

      It’s likely that Camilla is actually fine with the crown. She’s being played by attractive actresses and the show created the thwarted lovers angle to make her more sympathetic.

      • Becks1 says:

        I think Camilla is fine with it too. I think the show gets her (and Charles) more sympathy than they likely deserve.

  8. OriginalLeigh says:

    But why would Camilla have called Dominic “Your Majesty” in 2021, when Queen Elizabeth was still alive?! Was Camilla anticipating the Queen’s death, or is this all BS? (I’m not a Charles/Camilla supporter. I just don’t like “alternative facts.”)

    • Hopey says:

      Coming here to say the exact same thing. In 2021, wouldn’t she have called him “Your Royal Highness”? I, too, am calling BS.

  9. AnneL says:

    West is kind of a shameless fellow, isn’t he? I like how unfussed he is about it. He’s a very good actor, personal peccadilloes aside. I’m looking forward to watching his performance and all the more so because of the what he’s shared about the season. He seems to be having fun with it all.

  10. Truthiness says:

    “I have such a deep sense of sympathy for Charles.” You don’t say.

    I’m more interested in the deep bond his wife, Catherine Fitzgerald, forged with Charles over their love of gardening. She’s an Irish aristocrat who designed the gardens of the royal Hillsborough castle in Northern Ireland. A blonde aristocrat with a cheating husband who he can talk to about landscaping? Sounds like catnip for Charles.

  11. jferber says:

    The only “fiction” I see is a devastatingly handsome Dominic West playing the homely Prince Charles. Apart from that, no lies detected.