Outside of the Limited Series categories, there appear to be few close races this Emmy season. One exception is Best Actress, where frontrunner “The Crown’s” Emma Corrin faces a potentially historic win from “Pose’s” M.J. Rodriguez. With voting set to begin on Thursday, it’s no surprise that Netflix wants to remind viewers of Corrin’s acclaimed performance as the late Princess Diana.
In the third episode of season four, “Avalanche,” Diana gives Prince Charles (Josh O’Connor) a videotape of her singing “All I Ask of You” from the musical “Phantom of the Opera” as a wedding gift. It goes without saying that his muted, unenthusiastic reaction was not the reaction she was hoping for. In real life, Diana did record a performance on the show’s West End stage with composer Andrew Lloyd Webber in attendance. In the new clip, Diana gets out of bed (perhaps from an afternoon nap) and pulls out the video to watch again. The new version of this scene shows her preparing for the performance and members of the show’s impressed cast watching her from the wings. It’s unclear if Diana sang the song in real life (she may have lip-synched), but it turned out to be a key part of Corrin’s audition for the role.
Corrin noted in an interview with Vulture that she sang the song over a karaoke track for the show’s producers during the audition process. It turns out that during conversations, Corrin told show creator Peter Morgan she loved the song and was asked to sing it right then and there. She obliged, later discovering she had impressed Morgan and his team with the last-minute request.
In the context of the final version of the “Avalanche” episode, it’s unclear where this scene would have occurred but may have been shot as an alternate version to emphasize Diana’s despair over her crumbling marriage. That being said, this edit certainly provides an extended cut of Corrin’s singing skills. You can watch it embedded in this post.
“The Crown” season 4 is available on Netflix worldwide.