If you just can’t get enough of Royal Family drama, Diana: The Musical hits Netflix today. It’s a filmed version of the stage play which opens on Broadway in November. Jeanna de Waal plays Princess Diana and she offered up her opinion on why America is so in love with these stories.
“They’re the ultimate celebrities, right?” she rhetorically tells ABC Audio.
“America loves our celebrities and these celebrities actually live in castles and actually have titles and actually used to be, you know, kings and queens who have power,” the actress continues. “And there’s something insane and thrilling about that.”
Something else that de Waal finds thrilling is the fact that the musical is heading straight to on-screen viewers., which she says “democratizes the process of experiencing theater.”
“We bypassed some of the tight bottleneck, harsh New York critics, and just say hey world, what do you think? And I think it’s a fantastic way to engage a much wider crowd in theater,” she explains.
While Princess Diana’s story has been told in various ways, including on Netflix’s The Crown, it’s the “nuances” that de Waal says are not that well known, but “make for fantastic drama.”
“There’s a lot I think people don’t know between Charles, Diana, and Camilla, to be specific, is really what our story is about,” she shares.
So, will the royals be watching? Roe Hartrampf, who plays Prince Charles, hopes so.
“We hope that they realize that we’re approaching this from a real human storytelling standpoint and we are big fans of everybody involved.”
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