'The Crown's' Emma Corrin on her 'terrifying' resemblance to Princess Di

To all the girls who dream about falling in love and marrying a prince like they do in fairy tales, here's my advice to you: watch The Crown season 4.

There's a generation that has a vague awareness of Princess Diana, but for those who lived through her time as the People's Princess, Netflix's latest season of The Crown paints a darker version of what we've guessed.

It's a brutal portrayal of a starry-eyed young girl falling in love with a prince - and the nightmare of bulimia, affairs and an immense effort to have a voice in a family where everything is calculated and you're expected to tolerate personal pain for the image of the greater good.

That the world was besotted with Princess Di while her husband was besotted with another woman - a married woman - is known fact. What's shown is the cold and calculated manner in which a warm-hearted girl was frozen out.

In addition, we have hilarity along the way and an understanding of Margaret Thatcher, who, let's face it, has been vilified by many.

We see Thatcher running the country, being the only woman in a sea of suits, surviving the ups and downs of her iron will, and the double duty she did, like most working women, of returning home from work as the prime minister to make the evening meal for her man.

Other reveals (this may be a spoiler) include royals who are institutionalised and Princess Margaret's tragic loneliness. All together, you have an engrossing fourth season.

There's a lot for people to bite into, but the thing that remains most firmly in the mind is how two mismatched people were encouraged to marry for the sake of their country, which resulted in tragedy.

If you were young enough to have "known" Lady Diana and experienced her transformation into a princess, you'll gasp when you first see Emma Corrin. She's clearly shorter than the woman she portrays but she has all the mannerisms - the voice, the shy-Di gaze.

Josh O'Connor is her perfect counterpart as the long-suffering Prince Charles.

Speaking on the London set a week before lockdown, the two actors insisted that at some point their characters actually loved each other.

O'Connor creates sympathy for a man who will not inherit the throne if he follows his heart. Given the example of his uncle, Edward VIII, who abdicated for the love of a woman, Charles toes the royal line - but it must be said that Camilla Parker Bowles never relinquishes her hold on him and does little to dissuade his interest.

Indeed, Charles insists that his mistress meet his new wife to coach her (WTF!?). No wonder Princess Diana took to throwing up. Who could swallow that experience?

For a man in need of love and attention, Diana's popularity was a thorn in his side and pushed him towards the ever-receptive Camilla.

Seven months after the set visit, via Zoom, Corrin looks nothing like her character, crediting her "acting" with creating the illusion - although "my mum did look a lot like Diana. So much so that when Diana died, a woman fainted on the tube the next day at the sight of my mum."

Those who saw the film Misbehaviour may recognise Corrin as Miss SA Jillian Jessup, and the local connection doesn't end there. She has a South African mother, Juliette, a speech and language therapist; her British father, Christopher, is a businessman.

"I was daunted and overwhelmed when I began prepping to play Diana," says the 24-year-old.

"I did a lot of research, reading biographies and watching documentaries but I was frustrated with the iconology of it. When someone becomes an icon you can't know them because they become a kind of representative of themselves. I struggled. There's a lot of tabloid noise around her. When I got the script I realised that this is Peter Morgan's interpretation. It gave me more freedom to interpret her."

Corrin continues: "I worked with Polly Bennett who helped Rami Malek with Bohemian Rhapsody. We spent hours mucking around trying to get to grips with her mannerisms and her behaviour, thinking about why she tilts her head or does this thing with her eyes. We wanted to justify why we were going to do it that way if we were going to do it properly.

"There was a realisation, after wig shopping when, while wearing one of them as it was being shaped into Di's famous flip - you sit in them for hours having it done - you understand that all of this is the dullest thing in the world. There were pictures of Diana on a wall behind me. There was a moment when the hair stylist stopped cutting, and went: 'Oh my God'. I looked up and in the mirror my image completely matched the picture behind me. It was terrifying. I remember everyone gasping."

That gasp was shared by the crew when she first appeared in Diana's wedding gown.

Reviewing recent history through The Crown, you build up empathy for Prince Harry's decision to step away from the royal family. Corrin says she believes that Diana would have been proud of him.

She ponders: "The royal family is an interesting institution. It's antiquated. Society has modernised, and you can't ignore love, marriage, other people. Maybe Diana headed that change. I think she would have been sympathetic [about] what Harry has experienced.

"Everything that came after the initial meeting [with Charles] ... I think the rug was completely pulled from under her. I don't think she really knew what to expect. Did she want to be a princess? Probably. I don't know, who doesn't want to be a princess?"

After watching season four of The Crown, the better question is: who does?

• Season 4 of 'The Crown' is streaming on Netflix.

• Follow the author of this article, Margaret Gardiner, on YouTube or Instagram.