One of the best scenes from Season 5 of 'The Crown' was completely improvised.

 

The introduction of Mohamed Al-Fayed into the universe of The Crown has been one of the more fascinating and well-received aspects of Season 5. We meet Mohamed, also known as Mou Mou, in The Crown Season 5 Episode 3, which depicts him as a young man growing up in Egypt, his aspirations to become a successful businessman, and his acquisition of Harrods, the famed London department store that’s synonymous with Britain itself.

Once Mohamed bought Harrods, he thought that would be his entry point to meeting Queen Elizabeth II, but in the final moments of the episode, we see that the queen, who considers Al-Fayed an outsider, a nuisance, sends Princess Diana (also an outsider, also a nuisance) in her stead to sit with him at a polo match. The conversation that ensues between Diana (Elizabeth Debicki) and Mou Mou (Salim Daw) is one of the lightest, most charming moments of the season. A recent episode of Netflix’s The Crown: The Official Podcast features an interview with the episode’s director, Alex Gabassi, who explains that the version of the scene that made it into the episode is actually extended from what was originally in the script. That’s due to the fact that the actors’ chemistry led them to improvise and expand upon their original scripted conversation.

In the scene, when Diana sits next to Mohamed they immediately take to each other when they’re introduced. Diana, noticing a gift bag under Mohamed’s seat, asks, “Gifts for the boss lady?”

“Boss lady seems allergic to me,” Mohamed responds.

“Well, that makes two of us,” she tells him, and from there, a friendship was born.

Gabassi explains that while Daw and Debicki rehearsed the scene together for the first time, the chemistry was immediate and he cut the rehearsal short in order to not lose the excitement of two people actually meeting for the first time. “[Debicki] herself said, I think we shouldn’t do anymore,” Gabassi explains. “I said, ‘You’re right, we should do this on the day because let’s not, you know, lose that freshness. And as you can see, there is a moment in the scene in which she does laugh. She, she cannot contain herself.”

Later, when Diana lifts up the gift bag to rifle through the presents that Mohamed brought for the queen, Gabassi adds, “by the way, we extended that scene because they were improvising.We’re not gonna go through the bags. And then she kept going and she improvised, you know, Oh watch. And he goes like an expensive watch! And that wasn’t, you know, it wasn’t there. So he kept going. So it’s, it’s a wonderful, it just kept going and I just kept, Oh, I’m just gonna be watching them. And then she laughs, you know? So naturally. And we fall in love with her and fall in love with him too.”

While there are dozens of scenes between the actors on The Crown that show them flexing their drama muscles this season, there aren’t as many light, comedic scenes which is why this one stands out. On a show as tightly scripted and heavily researched as The Crown, it’s not often that the actors go off-script, but in this instance, it made for one of the best moments of the season.