the Great Male Genius. In his breakout role in God’s Own
Country (2017), he zipped from one end of the class
spectrum to the other, pulling in awards for his portrayal of
a self-destructive Yorkshire farmer who falls in love with a
Romanian migrant worker. Critics hailed it as the British
Brokeback Mountain, but for O’Connor it was a film about men
being “emotionally inarticulate” regardless of their sexuality.
Does Prince Charles—whom O’Connor plays in the current
season of The Crown—have a crisis of masculinity? “I think
Charles is deeply emotional,” O’Connor says. “His father, Prince
Philip, might call it soft. I would call it strong but in a different
way.” Learning about the prince’s tabloid-harried love life was
also instructive for an actor on the cusp of true fame: O’Connor
makes a point of not naming his girlfriend (who works in
advertising) in the press, although photos of the couple are
readily Googleable. His phone background shows her at home,
standing in front of a recently purchased abstract canvas;
the two live in a home filled with art and ceramics—particularly
O’Connor’s grandma’s figurative sculptures, which he describes
as his favorite things “in the entire world.” He draws to de-stress
and cooks a lot—slightly altering the recipes from a Persian
cookbook he knows almost by heart. Who is the tastemaker in
their home? “Me,” he mouths jokingly, then backtracks for
the record: “We’re really lucky and have very similar tastes.”
Lots of actors get impatient between jobs, but I get the feeling
that O’Connor would take well to “resting,” should he ever
get the chance—2020 also brings O’Connor’s turn as Mr. Elton
in a screen adaptation of
Jane Austen’s Emma. While
filming for The Crown in
Scotland, he managed to
fit in six swims in the wild
for the mental health charity
MIND (he’s trying to do
30 in his 30th year) as well
as an overly ambitious solo
hike that ended with him
camping overnight on a
remote stretch of coastline,
miles from cell reception.
“I was looking at my tent
on this beach as the storm
was coming in, thinking,
What have I done?” he tells
me. “Total cock-up.” But
he is clearly cheered by the
memory. “It’s a secret dream
of mine, to sack it all off,”
he admits. We bond over a
shared ambition of finding the time to learn how to throw a pot.
“It’s looks simple, but it’s not,” he enthuses. “It’s really hard!”
Although O’Connor romanticizes the prospect of a
Walden-esque retreat, I simultaneously get the sense that the
young actor is raring to seize this moment: His star is rising
on both sides of the Atlantic, thanks to The Crown. There
are lots of evening pottery classes in London, I reassure him.
O’Connor grins; he’s already done the research and found
a couple of promising courses in nearby Hackney. “See
you there!”—harriet fitch little
Mistress of
the Robes
“Get yourself a cup
of tea, sit down,
put your feet up, and let me
take you on a magical
journey,” urges Angela Kelly
in The Other Side of the
Coin: The Queen, the Dresser
and the Wardrobe (Harper),
a delightfully engaging book
from Queen Elizabeth II’s
personal assistant and senior
dresser that reveals the
meticulous planning that
goes into producing and
coordinating Her Majesty’s
iconic looks. Kelly and her
royal mistress appear to enjoy a respectful complicity.
Initially self-conscious about her broad Liverpudlian
accent, Kelly decided that she needed elocution lessons,
and who better than Her Majesty to provide instruction?
The queen suggested furious as the first experiment.
“Fee-or-ree-ous,’’ enunciated Her Majesty. “Fyer-ri-ous,”
countered Kelly, at which point they both decided
to leave well enough alone. Kelly has collaborated with
the designer Stewart Parvin MVO and the milliner
Stella McLaren, and since 2001 frequently designs the
ensembles herself (working with a team of in-palace
seamstresses): Gutsy colors by day ensure the diminutive
wearer is the cynosure of all eyes, and pale hues for
evening are a foil to the magnificence of the royal jewels.
We learn that Her Majesty is an avid stargazer and
that the feisty Duke of Edinburgh can always be relied
upon for an unvarnished assessment of controversial
styles. (“Is that the new material for the sofa?”)
The queen “doesn’t mind temporary discomfort when
it is so important for her to ‘look the part,’ ” although
substantial beading is usually concentrated on the front
or side of gala evening dresses so that she doesn’t
have to sit on it, and stiff new shoes are worn in by none
other than Kelly herself, who luckily shares her royal
mistress’s shoe size. Priceless.—HAMISH BOWLES
LIVES
HEAVY IS THE HEAD
O’CONNOR SHOWS A
“DEEPLY EMOTIONAL” SIDE
OF THE YOUNG PRINCE.
POWER POSE
A NEW BOOK BY THE
ROYAL DRESSER SHOWS
ANOTHER SIDE OF
QUEEN ELIZABETH II.
VLIFE
92 DECEMBER 2019 VOGUE.COM
CLOCKWISE FROM FAR LEFT: DES WILLIE/NETFLIX; PHOTOGRAPHY BY JULIAN CALDER, CAMERA PRESS LONDON; BARRY JEFFERY.
