Here she is on the Golden Globes stage, and she cant think of anything else to say.
Goodness, she stammers.
Maybe…thats it?
BRANCHING OUTElizabeth Debicki wears a dress from Vetements by Guram Gvasalia for spring 2024 (courtesy of Vetements by Guram Gvasalia). Fashion Editor: Amanda Harlech.
she says to me, appalled.
That has to be the most Australian thing anyones ever said.
The whole Globes experience was the biggest moment of the Paris-born, Melbourne-raised actors career.
But it cost her too.
I find carpets quite overwhelming, she admits.
Long hair, wire glasses, jeans, vintage work shirt, turtleneck, Adidas.
She has missed lunch and chooses an infusion with beetroot as sustenance.
Because she wasnt inventing a backstory but reckoning with history and factsand with public opinion.
Heres this wholelife, she says.
Even at the table read, she had the character completely, says costar Dominic West.
I was very much at sea with Charles.
I hadnt quite got a handle on it.
And she had the voice.
She also had Dianas humor.
That was the thing that struck me most, he adds.
Debicki knows that she is not cut out for the life of a royal.
Theres her propensity to withdraw; theres also a kind of counterbalancing wanderlust.
I have this insatiable desire to sort of live everywhere, which is absolutely terrible, she says.
Its really hard to live away from them.
When youre 20 the distance just bounces off of you.
But now I miss my family terribly all the time.
Her parents were professional ballet dancersand Debicki herself trained in dance until she was 18.
My body has a memory of once being an extremely fit person, she says.
And then they would bench me for the whole game.
Sports are still a nonstarter.
Recently she picked up Shirley Jacksons 1962 classic thriller,We Have Always Lived in the Castle.Devastating.
The gothic sensibility of Jackson neatly brings us around to her next film.
It was a compliment not lost on Debicki.
Would you like to play an 80s film director with massive leather shoulder pads?
Yes.Ive never felt so seen in my life.
Thats a really small bulls-eye to hit.
I didnt know if wed be able to get herbut she jumped at it.
And shes so iconic in the role.
There is more on the horizon.
Most exciting is a return to the New York stage.
Theaterunlike acceptance speechesputs her inside a ring of safety.
These very strong boundaries, she says.
You spend four or five weeks in rehearsals carving out a path.
She smiles and its as if the Globes moment never happened.
The joy I get onstage is justprofound.
