It’s two weeks after Elizabeth Debicki attended the Met Gala. She’s now in Los Angeles for Emmy campaigning for her work as Princess Diana on “The Crown.”
I meet her Netflix’s FYC pop-up in Hollywood for quick chat before she takes part in a panel discussion with “The Crown” creator Peter Morgan. We grab a couple of seats in the “Ripley” room. “I’m bummed I couldn’t be in it,” Debicki says of the streamer’s adaptation of the Patricia Highsmith’s 1955 crime novel, “The Talented Mr. Ripley.” “Not that anyone asked.”
But then she suddenly remembers the Met Gala. “I sat in between Jude Law and Matt Damon,” Debicki says. “At that point, one margarita in, I thought, “Oh, my God. I’m in a Ripley sandwich.”
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She did not, however, share her thought with the original “Ripley” actors.
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“I had so much fun,” Debicki says of Anna Wintour’s annual museum fundraiser. “I’ve been before and I’ve had less fun. Maybe I’m older and wiser and I thought, ‘Fuck it, I’m here with a big dress and big wig on, I might as well have a nice time.’”
As Debicki campaigns for Emmy love, it’s also bittersweet because it means the end of her time with “The Crown.” “It’s been a slow moving away from it,” she says. “I’ve taken my treasures from it. It’s twofold. On a personal level, I’ve learned a lot from playing that character and as an actor it was a hugely terrifying challenge.”
Debicki has already filled her shelves with awards for “The Crown.” When she won a SAG award over “Succession” star Sarah Snook, she looked genuinely surprised: “The truth is that Sarah, who I’ve known for many years because she and I used to audition for everything, I just kind of thought I watched ‘Succession’ and I thought her work was amazing. I just hedged my bets in the other direction away from myself.”
Not long after, Debicki visited Snook backstage after a performance of her West End production of “The Picture of Dorian Gray”: “I just looked at her and said, ‘What the hell happened?’”
After wrapping “The Crown,” Debicki shot her horror film debut in “MaXXXine.” When she agreed to take the part, her team was a bit surprised. “I think they thought I might say, ‘Why are you sending me this?’” Debicki says. “But I thought it was brilliant. I sat down and read it and I read it right through. That’s my test. I called them back and said, ‘Let’s do it.’”
She’s been sent horror scripts in the past. “It’s not really for me because that world is so dark. I’m very cautious about the things I want to put myself through,” Debicki said. “I’ve often thought, ‘Oh, God, I can barely read that. It’s too frightening.’ But this is different because the trilogy of it and it’s the ‘80s. The quality of it…And I know I was joining this lovely cushion of people.”
