
True, his scenes with Elizabeth Debicki’s Diana are hardly the finest acting work in a series stacked with high-caliber performances.

In the latest season of the Netflix drama The Crown, Colthurst is depicted in only one episode by the actor Oliver Chris. More importantly, they shared a confidence-one of the few in the late princess’s short life that was challenged but never outright betrayed.

An old friend from her days as a blushing London socialite, Colthurst shared her stately pedigree as the second son of an Irish baronet, his family home was a literal castle. James Colthurst knew something most of the world as yet did not: The Princess of Wales was miserable. In the early days of Princess Diana’s marriage to the man who’d become king, Dr.
