Before landing the role as one of the most recognizable faces in the world, 23-year-old English actor Luther Ford never thought he bore a resemblance to Prince Harry. 

“My mom specifically was like, ‘You’re never going to get it. You don’t look like him,’ ” he tells Tudum over Zoom, laughing. And yet, when an open casting call for The Crown’s sixth — and final — season looking for young actors piqued his brother’s girlfriend’s interest, he was egged on to give it a go. “Hey, at least it would be a good story,” he remembers thinking at the time. “She sent it through and she was like, ‘Oh, you should do this.’ I was like, ‘Yeah.’ Well, I’ll give it a go because it’ll be a great anecdote to say, ‘Oh, I auditioned for Harry in The Crown.’ ” The rest, as they say, is history, which feels fitting for a series that has been mining the past since 2016 to chronicle the unseen lives of one of the most-seen families in the world.

Joseph Sinclair for Netflix

Ford was in his final year of university, and though he was studying film and had a few self-produced shorts to his name, he had no formal acting training. And yet, he got a callback. And then another, and then another. After weeks of screen tests and paired auditions with Ed McVey (who’d already been cast as the final iteration of Prince William), Ford nabbed the role of the younger son of Prince Charles and Princess Diana. He still finds it hard to wrap his head around it. “I didn’t have an intention of getting it, I just kept following the lead of what was being put in front of me and wound up getting the part,” he says with disbelief. “Every now and then I’ll reconnect to, ‘Wait, hold on, this wasn’t meant to happen.’ ”

Season 6 of The Crown (Part 1 and Part 2 are available to stream now) tracks some of the most difficult years for the royal family, from the sudden death of Princess Diana in 1997 up to Prince Charles and Camila Parker Bowles’ wedding in 2005. Two Harrys appear in Season 6; Fflyn Edwards portrays him as a young boy in the immediate aftermath of his mother’s death and Ford as a teenager in the early 2000s. 

After what Ford calls “incredible” work by the hair and makeup team to believably transform him into the nation’s most famous redhead, he says the true test of his Harry-ness came from within — the show’s movement coaches helped him tap into the physical stature of nobility. “They set up a meeting with a marine who had just completed his training, and he taught me how to march,” says Ford. “There’s no relation to [that] in the show — it doesn’t cover Harry staying at Sandhurst [Royal Military Academy] or anything, but in terms of the physicality, of even just standing up straight, [it really helped]. A fundamental challenge of playing a royal — despite their characteristics, lack of confidence, or any inferiority complex they might have — is that they’re still the most privileged people in the world.”

On the show, after the death of Princess Diana, Harry and William are thrust into the spotlight with an intensity they’ve never seen before. The watchful public tracks their every move, honing in on everything from their first days of university to any relationships that blossom. For Ford, the bond between the two brothers, born from being the only people to understand their unique lives, was integral to his emotional work in the series.

Joseph Sinclair for Netflix

“Pretty much everything relating to Harry in the series is about the relationship between William and Harry,” he says, which meant he and co-star McVey spent a lot of time together. “Every day that I was shooting, I was with Ed. Maybe there was one day when I wasn’t, and that was when I was feeding some pigs on my own. That was a good day.” 

He adds that they just had great chemistry from the get go. (He and McVey — not the pigs.) “I’m a younger sibling, so I very easily slotted into that dynamic,” says Ford. “I think Ed and I are basically the same age, but we’ve never acknowledged it.” While The Crown marks television debuts for both of them, Ford says there was a natural mentor energy from his on-screen big bro. “He had gone to drama school and he is an actor,” he explains. “We’re both actors, but he’s an actor, you know? He was very generous and kind and guided me through it all.”

Justin Downing/Netflix

Ford’s late entry into The Crown-iverse sits, ironically, alongside its ending. The start of his journey as an actor coincides with six seasons, three cast changeovers, and 50 years of history wrapping up. “The last shot I did was the last shot filmed of The Crown,” says Ford about a scene with McVey that wrapped the entire series. “There was a brass band playing ‘Celebration,’ and everyone just spontaneously started dancing.”

Stream The Crown Season 6, Parts 1 and 2 now.

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