THE CROWN’s Ed McVey and Meg Bellamy Cover TOWN & COUNTRY Magazine

PinTHE CROWN’s Ed Mcvey and Meg Bellamy featured on TOWN & COUNTRY’s December 2023 Digital Cover.

The Crown creator Peter Morgan on finding Meg Bellamy for Kate: In Bellamy, Morgan saw something tha reminded him of the future queen. “The Princess of Wales, or Kate Middleton as she was known then, was just such a contrast to the formality that was all around her,” he says. “You couldn’t help but think what a great job she has done and how effortlessly she seems to have fit in.” Bellamy, Morgan is quick to add, “has some of those instantly likable, instantly relatable qualities.”

Actor Ed McVey on filming on the set of The Crown: Excitement and terror—his words—soon followed when McVey arrived for his first day of filming. It was a scene from the second-to-last episode, a tense exchange with Luther Ford, who plays Prince Harry, while the rest of the family mingles behind them. “Having all these massive stars that you have looked up to your whole life being in the background of your shot and not doing anything all day,” McVey pauses, shaking his head. “You’re just like, ‘No, this can’t be right.’”

McVey on how extras hired to be Prince William’s fangirls informed McVey’s performance: Another thing that was frightfully new: Throngs of screaming girls. In the season’s final episodes, as William grieves the death of his mother and grapples with blaming his father, his new heartthrob status reaches a fever pitch. McVey assumed that the noise of the crowds would somehow be added in post-production. Instead, he was greeted by an actual choir, a group of girls cast because they who knew how to scream for longer and at volumes much louder than one might expect. It wasn’t hard for McVey to channel William’s response, unwelcome to the point of unwanted. “You don’t have to act,” he says. “You just have to be there and feel it.”

Dominic West, Prince Charles in The Crown, on working with McVey: he was impressed with McVey’s preparedness and professionalism, describing him as “really good.” But he didn’t seek out McVey to prepare for their heated exchanges. “Maybe that’s because I wasn’t very generous towards him,” West says, slipping into Charles with a self-aware laugh. “When you are playing people who are at loggerheads, which they were, it’s better not.”

Meg Bellamy and Ed McVey on how real life paparazzi informed their performances and helped them with their characters: They leaned on one another throughout filming but especially while on location at St. Andrews, the Scottish university where Will and Kate met in real life. When The Crown arrived on campus, so did massive crowds and a host of paparazzi. “That was a bit like…” Bellamy says, her eyes widening and her breathing quickening as she reaches over to grab McVey’s hand. “Even though it was very intense, it was actually incredibly helpful,” McVey says, turning it back to the craft. “That’s what Will’s life was like all the time. Never getting a moment of peace. You always have to be switched on in some capacity. You never know who’s looking or taking photos or recording you.”

Bellamy on how The Crown wrote her character and how she approached her character: It’s the latter version of Kate The Crown has leaned into, not the lovesick (at best) or plotting (at worst) college student in pursuit of her prince that so many other accounts have taken. In Morgan’s telling, William is the pursuer, not the pursued. He sets his sights on her early and falls quite hard. Kate is so assured she nearly comes off as uninterested. One scene in the library—no spoilers here—is deliciously written, with Kate putting the prince in his place. “It makes it so much more interesting that Kate has a sense of self throughout,” Bellamy says. “She holds her own.”

Meg Bellamy and Ed McVey on the depiction of their on-screen relationship: Bellamy sums up Will and Kate’s Crown relationship as “very heartwarming,” especially after all that William has been through. “It’s nice to see him smiling again,” she says. McVey agrees, but his ultimate takeaway from his time with the series is far less romantic. “You can’t judge these people when you are playing them,” he says. Stepping into William’s shoes, even if just for this brief time, dissolved any sense of mystery or magic. “It is an incredibly tricky job,” he says. “I wouldn’t want it, and I don’t know anyone who would.”

[Photo Credit: Courtesy of Town & Country Magazine]

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