Josh O’Connor went from a somewhat concealed secret to a break-out star on top of everyone’s wish lists in a relatively short time. His performance as Prince Charles in Netflix’s The Crown spread the gospel of his talents to those still largely unaware, and while all our lives were better for it, the results for him were ambiguous.
It turns out some actors really do just want to act, without any ulterior motives of fame and excess. “You want to be in stuff that’s successful and seen,” O’Connor concedes in an interview with GQ, but giving up privacy for it didn’t come easy. “We underestimate how powerful even a slight loss of anonymity can be,” the actor said of the recognition that came from playing such a recognizable figure in such a popular show.
Before The Crown, O’Connor was best known for his heartwrenching turn in Francis Lee’s God’s Own Country — a beautiful queer movie from 2017 that, despite deserving it, never really went mainstream. That all changed after Charles, at which point people started asking him about his opinions on the royal family, after stopping him for photos on the street. “It was a fucked-up time. I found it so impactful, people stopping me,” O’Connor lamented.
No matter how much you miss passing by unnoticed, you can’t exactly say no when the likes of Luca Guadagnino come knocking. If O’Connor’s star was firmly lit up by his Emmy-winning royal performance, then the Italian filmmaker’s next — Challengers, a sports romance drama with Zendaya and Mike Faist — will take it positively stratospheric.
Also In the pipeline are a Karim Aïnouz film with Kristen Stewart and Elle Fanning, Bonus Track which is based on a story O’Connor himself wrote, a World War I piece opposite fellow breakout Paul Mescal, and plenty more. It looks like O’Connor won’t be going back to anonymity any time soon, but at least any monarchy-related pestering will hopefully wane as The Crown reaches its final season later this year.
