Meet The Crown's new Prince Charles: Josh O'Connor

Already critically adored, Josh O’Connor will soon be a household name, thanks to his upcoming role as Prince Charles in The Crown. He tells Louis Wise about taking on the heir to the throne — and why his ears are his most important asset  
Louis Wise11 July 2019

As far back as primary school, Josh O’Connor yearned to have his ears pinned back.

In secondary school, someone called him Dumbo. Although it hurt at the time, now he can take the long view. Let’s face it: without his distinctive ears, it’s unlikely that he would have got the call from Netflix to play England’s heir to the throne.

‘I did think immediately,’ he says, gesturing somewhat unnecessarily to his not-actually-that-big ears, ‘Who’s gonna play Charles? I don’t know anyone my age who’s got these. They’re not huge, but they stick out.’

We meet in a warehouse in east London to discuss his new film, Only You, out this weekend (more on which later). O’Connor is cheerful and buzzing, having just finished filming the third season of The Crown. Next month, he will embark on the fourth, due to be released next year (the cast, he explains, changes every two seasons, and they film the two pretty much back-to-back). What that means for O’Connor, essentially, is wading through Charles’s 20s and 30s — spanning his relationships with Camilla (played by Killing Eve writer Emerald Fennell) and Diana (newcomer Emma Corrin). It also means filming some ‘very tense’ scenes alongside Helena Bonham Carter (Princess Margaret), Charles Dance (Lord Mountbatten) and the new Royal Highness of British Acting herself, Oscar-winner Olivia Colman (who commands a rather less foul-mouthed Queen than the one she played in The Favourite).

“I have an ideal of how my life might be. And it’s nice, in the country, with fires and… toast!”

Josh O'Connor

Working alongside Colman, he says, was ‘epic. I remember looking over and being like: “Holy shit! This is it. This is the peak for me.” You have to stop yourself midway through a scene and be like, “I’m acting with Olivia Colman!” But then she’s also got this amazing thing where they call “cut”, and she’s like, “Shall we have a cup of tea?”’

Taking on the Queen’s firstborn was no small task: particularly given that O’Connor grew up in a household that was indifferent to the royal family. Neither his English teacher father, nor his midwife mother or two brothers were especially interested in the Windsors’ goings-on. Thus the avalanche of novels, papers and letters that producers furnished him with on day one came as fresh information. Now though, O’Connor says that he ‘really loves’ Charles. He has got his walk — ‘like a tortoise’, he grins — down to a T. He is also keen to point out, however, that he is talking only about a character ‘because I think the first thing I learned is that it’s totally impossible to replicate the real man. I don’t know who he is, none of us do.’

O’Connor grew up near Cheltenham in a loving family. His dreams as a young boy were split between acting and professional football, reflecting the influence of each parent. His mother, he thinks, could have been an actress in another life, while his dad shares his love of football. Was the latter really a career option? ‘Well, I thought so for a long time,’ he says tentatively. The main problem was that, at that teenage stage when you need to get a bit stronger to play footie properly, most boys get ‘kind of bristly and stacked’. He didn’t. Instead, he stayed skinny, pale and not very hairy, and got into indie music ‘and wearing skinny jeans’. He cringes. ‘I remember not wanting to play football because I didn’t want to get my hair wet.’

While his dreams of lifting the World Cup may have faded, O’Connor got the acting bug, enrolling at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, from which he graduated in 2011. Small-but-good roles in the likes of The Riot Club and The Program followed a few years later, but his breakout came with God’s Own Country in 2017. A gay love story set in rural Yorkshire, he played the heartbreaking Johnny Saxby, a young man numbed by his inability to understand his own needs. Significant critical acclaim followed, as did small screen roles in shows like The Durrells, Peaky Blinders and Les Misérables. And now comes his cinematic return in Only You, the advance reviews for which have been even better than they were for God’s Own Country. In it, he plays Jake, a young PhD student who falls into a whirlwind relationship with Elena (Laia Costa), who is gorgeous, Spanish, older than him and ready for kids. So they try, but the trying gets hard. Tests and questions and IVF come into the mix, their relationship getting lost in the process.

More so than the connection he felt to the future king of England, O’Connor relates to the character of Jake. He sympathises with how quickly he gets together with Elena. He himself has a girlfriend of two and a half years who he lives with (‘She’s brilliant. She has a job in another industry’). ‘In my experience,’ he says, ‘you meet someone and it’s like, bosh! This is amazing.’ Is he, at 29, ready for children himself? ‘I’d definitely like to have kids at some point,’ he says. ‘But I don’t want to have kids right now.’ O’Connor does, though, have ‘an ideal of how my life might be. And it’s nice, in the country, with fires and… toast!’

Off-screen, as this might suggest, O’Connor is very much a sensitive, old soul. He keeps a scrapbook of his adventures abroad to look at ‘if I’m feeling a bit low’. His Instagram (@joshographee) showcases his ‘meditative’ drawings and this unique combination of creative flair and being more than just a pretty face has recently landed him a very cool high fashion Loewe campaign. He once called his agent to tell him he was on the way to the gym but only in an attempt to ‘try and impress them. I bought a membership for a gym in Tottenham. I had it for five years and never went.’ He also says things like, ‘I’m always fascinated with the fragility of masculinity’, so it’s not a huge surprise that he tends to play earnest young men, rather than hitmen or bodyguards. He is, anyway, politely sceptical about the perceived pressure on young actors to bulk up for roles. ‘I don’t really buy that. Richard Madden said that recently — “the pressure on us lads” and so on. But I haven’t experienced it.’

Most tellingly of all, when I ask him who he’s been most starstruck by, he gives a very actorly list: Bill Nighy, Meryl Streep and Hugh Grant who, along with Streep, he met on the set of Florence Foster Jenkins. ‘He was, in a weird way, my favourite actor as a kid,’ he admits. ‘I just remember thinking: if I could have his hair, then everything in my life would be perfect.’ And? ‘And I don’t have his hair,’ he sighs. ‘His is more floppy. I wish I had his hair! So much!’ I try to tell him his is okay, but he’s off. ‘It’s just so good, and especially in Notting Hill — it sort of flicks. And the flat he has in it too! Everything about Hugh Grant: amazing.’

A similar flat, you suspect, he should soon be able to afford. And, if he really wants it, the hair too. But I wouldn’t suggest he changes anything — especially not his ears — because right now things seem to be working out for Josh O’Connor just fine as he is.

‘Only You’ is in cinemas 12 July

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in