Prince William young
Looking at photos of Prince William young, you can see where actor Ed McVey’s similarities are, even though he didn’t see it himself initially. “You look in the mirror when you’ve got your makeup and your hair [done] and your costumes on, and you’re like, ‘Okay, I see a bit more now,’” McVey told Harper’s Bazaar.
“Interestingly, he’s one of the first future monarchs to be documented from birth, so you’re able to watch him grow throughout every stage of his life. What I was interested in was his physicality from when he was younger, around 16, 17, [when he was] not wanting to take up much space, was very insular, and not wanting to be the center of attention.”
He continued: “Then, as time goes on, you open up a little bit, you take up a bit more space, and you are more confident in who you are. I saw and connected with that, and I think that was a really helpful part of the text. I also tried to play with the voice a little bit, and have the voice more in the pitch of how I speak in the earlier episodes, and then lowering it as the show goes on, to accent him growing older and his voice getting deeper. Those are things you subconsciously notice when you’re watching someone so much.”
He went on to explain how he fleshed out the dynamic between William and Charles, played by Dominic West in the final seasons. “With that father-son relationship between Charles and William, the people you love the most and you’re close to in your life are always the ones you’re going to lash out at in times of grief,” McVey explained. “They’re the first people that get the brunt of your emotions, especially when you’re young [and] don’t know how to process how you’re feeling, and that was really fun to play. I think so much of it was in the writing anyway [that] you didn’t really have to mine or unpack it so much, because so much of it was so raw, and it was fairly plain to see where this character’s at.”
