Even though Netflix is trying oh-so-hard to convince viewers that maybe their portrayal of the Royal family isn’t completely accurate, they still like to throw in fun bits every once in a while. The world was shocked by those first images of Diana’s “revenge dress” and just how much Elizabeth Debick resembles the iconic princess. The attention to detail is pretty thorough for a show that must be taken with quite a hefty tablespoon of salt.
It seems like Dominic West, who portrays Prince Charles in season five, wanted his own moment to shine, so, of course, they choose something that Prince Charles is so well-known for: breakdancing.
Wait, you didn’t know that Prince Charles, who is now a King, by the way, likes to dance in his spare time when he’s not being pelted with raw eggs? You’re not alone. But… the cast of The Crown found a video of him dancing at a club in 1985 and decided they simply MUST be historically accurate about that specific moment in time.
West explained how it all went down in a new interview: “Peter [Morgan] hadn’t written [the scene] initially and we alerted Peter to it—just, ‘You’ve gotta see this amazing video footage of Charles break-dancing,'” the actor told Vanity Fair. “So he put [the scene] over the credits and I’m really glad, because it actually says so much about him. He really has a go. He knows he’s going to look ridiculous, but you could see there’s a certain—especially when he was younger—a certain competitive streak in Charles, particularly when it came to sports.” Maybe you wouldn’t know from looking at him or hearing him speak or do anything really, but King Charles is an avid skier and horse rider (you can’t forget that the is Royalty, after all) so the moves just came naturally to him!
West explained, “He’s physically very courageous and you could see that coming out in the excruciating moment when he is in a club and he’s asked to dance with these brilliant dancers. So I love that moment. I thought it was very telling about him.” Courageous is definitely one way to describe Prince Charles’s dancing, but West really did his homework in order to learn the moves. “We did spend quite a bit of time with Polly learning the dance he does on YouTube, which is extraordinary,” West said, despite the fact that most of the dance didn’t make it to the screen. “I learned the whole thing but it doesn’t make the cut. Anyway, it was fun…. He has extraordinary moves. It’s fabulous actually.” To be fair, break-dancing was a lot more common in the ’80s before the internet made you realize how silly it looked.
Before you ask– Yes! There is a video, though it should come with some sort of content warning like “Caution: This video features a very rich guy dancing in a way that will make you want to look away but you need to watch it so you can blog about it” or something along those lines. But you can watch it here!
