Emma Corrin is making history. The 30-year-old actor, who catapulted to fame playing Princess Diana in “The Crown,” is Variety’s first nonbinary Power of Women cover star. But it wasn’t exactly a no-brainer — in fact, they were hesitant. “It was a scary thing when [the cover offer] first came in,” Corrin admits.
We’re in the huge, dome-shaped penthouse of London’s Hotel Café Royal, but Corrin and I are sitting cross-legged on the floor instead of on the perfectly suitable velvet couch behind us. “It’s a label thing, isn’t it?” they continue. “Which doesn’t mean anything but also it does, and it’s confusing.”
Zoe McConnell for Variety
Corrin has just finished their cover shoot, where they sported a gray work skirt and matching shirt from Miu Miu, the fashion house for which they’ve been a longtime ambassador. But for our interview, they change into a simple black sweater and jeans. Away from the cameras and hair and makeup people, Corrin breathes a sigh of relief; they’re more comfortable now.
“I’m incredibly honored to be the first nonbinary person, and now more than ever it is so important for people — no matter how they identify — to be able to celebrate each other,” they continue. “It doesn’t have to be women celebrating the power of women — it can be women, queer, nonbinary people celebrating the power of women. And I think that’s fucking awesome.”
As Corrin’s star rose with “The Crown,” leading to hundreds of thousands of Instagram followers and the Miu Miu partnership, they were also discovering their identity. In April 2021, they came out as queer in an Instagram post, and a few months later began using “she/they” pronouns. By the summer of 2022, Corrin updated their pronouns to “they/them.” Today, Corrin speaks with remarkable candor about their identity, clearly wanting to empower others to do the same. But it’s not a position they ever thought they’d find themself in — and one they’re still adjusting to.
“It’s a balance of being super proud of the person I am and wanting to share that and advocate for that, which I always will, but also making sure that I have a private part of my identity,” they say, hugging their legs to their chest.
This urge to shy away from the spotlight isn’t unlike the person the world has associated them with — that is, the late Princess Diana, whom they played in Season 4 of “The Crown” with a resemblance so uncanny and emotion so unflinching it earned them a Golden Globe and a Critics’ Choice Award. Now they will be cemented as Netflix royalty with a different adaptation: They’re starring as Elizabeth Bennet in Netflix’s highly anticipated “Pride & Prejudice” series, a role that Corrin remains tight-lipped about. “We’ll have to talk again when it’s out, and I’ll tell you everything,” Corrin says with a soft smile.
Six years on from playing Diana, the late princess hasn’t left Corrin’s mind.
“I loved her. I loved playing her,” they say, bright blue eyes twinkling below messy-chic pixie-cut hair. “I don’t think roles like that come along often. I’ve had parts since that I’ve been so fond of, but there was something about that, and about her, that just — it felt different and it feels different.”
Stepping into Diana’s shoes was “so scary,” Corrin says. But “The Crown” director Ben Caron urged Corrin to use the fear to better tell her story. The day Corrin got the role (Caron dramatically got down on one knee and asked, “Will you be our Diana?”), he told them: “From this moment, your life is going to change exactly how hers changed. So every single moment of this, store it away. Notice it.”
“It was kind of comforting,” Corrin says. “I felt like I wasn’t doing it alone; I felt like I was doing it with her.”
It also helped that Season 4 premiered during the height of the COVID pandemic in 2020. “I was really protected by that,” they say. “I would have probably been on a circus of a press tour, when actually I was just in my living room on Zoom. Kind of tragic, kind of nice. It’s made me overwhelmed by press since then.”
Indeed, it’s striking just how down-to-earth Corrin is for someone who shot to fame so rapidly. They split their time between London, where they live with three friends, and the seaside town of Margate. When asked if they’ve ever been tempted to move to L.A., the response is an immediate no. And when they first came out five years ago — posing on Instagram in a Miu Miu wedding dress with the caption “ur fave queer bride” — it felt as casual as any other post.
“It was a scary thing in retrospect, but I didn’t put much thought into sharing it,” they say. “I was feeling so euphoric about having figured something out about myself that felt so big, and I wanted to celebrate it and share it with other people who might feel the same.”
Although Corrin was welcomed with open arms by the queer community, the wider audience that had met them as Diana in “The Crown” was not as supportive. Just one quick perusal of Corrin’s Instagram comments reveals shocking bigotry.
“So much of the world — even more so now than then, which is terrifying — is not ready and does not want to hear that,” they say. “And I think that it was a rude awakening to the vileness of the world.”
The hate got so bad that Corrin deactivated their Instagram account for a year and has just come back on the platform. “It’s actually kind of amazing how I’ve broken the habit,” they say. “I don’t have anything in my brain that’s like, ‘I wonder what’s happening on Instagram?’”
So why return? “It was work,” Corrin says. “I was kind of given no choice in the world we live in today. But I was like, ‘You know what? It’s not a hill worth dying on. Make the best of it.’ It’s really nice knowing that like, I’m a nonbinary person on Instagram and even if it’s just helping one person to see that, that’s worth it.”
At the time of our conversation, they still don’t have the app downloaded on their phone, and haven’t posted yet. A few days after our interview, Corrin made their Instagram return official with a photo dump from Milan, where they were on a trip with Miu Miu, led by a casual, slightly blurry selfie in the famed Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II. Three more posts have followed, but for all of them the comments are turned off.
“I’m just always anxious because I worry too much about what people think,” Corrin says, laughing despite the subject matter. “And I think that’s what I’m trying to do less of.”
Corrin’s first love was theater. Growing up in Royal Tunbridge Wells, a peaceful medieval town about 30 miles southeast of London, their parents always encouraged their pursuit of the arts, though Corrin and their two brothers “weren’t really allowed to watch much TV.”
“I used to save up and go to London and watch [director] Michael Grandage shows and anything I could see, really,” says Corrin, who has now starred in two of Grandage’s projects, the 2022 film “The Policeman” and the 2023 West End production of Virginia Woolf’s “Orlando.” “I’ve always felt a bit self-conscious about how I’m not an actor with a story like, you know, ‘I watched Al Pacino at 12 years old and then thought, “This is for me.”’ I don’t really have a film that made me want to act. It was mainly theater.”
By the time Corrin was 15, they “knew 100%” that acting was what they wanted to do — but had no idea how to get there. When they applied to drama school, they were rejected two years running. “In fact, when I went into my Royal Academy of Dramatic Art audition, they asked me, ‘Do you have any alternative career options?’ In the room! Which was, looking back, so savage,” Corrin recalls.
After a brief stint at the University of Bristol, Corrin was accepted into the prestigious St. John’s College at the University of Cambridge, where they studied education and early childhood development and also became immersed in the college’s active theater community. They eventually scored an agent after an acting showcase in their last year of school, and were cast in “The Crown” just a year later, which Corrin acknowledges “changed my life completely.”
But after the buzz died down from Season 4 and Elizabeth Debicki took over the role of Diana, Corrin felt a bit stuck. “Especially in the kind of projects that came in directly after that. People love to pigeonhole,” they say. “And that’s fine. But it then takes you to sort of step back and think, ‘What do I want to do? Who am I separate from this project that is now such an ingrained part of me?’”
Corrin followed up “The Crown” with two more period dramas — “The Policeman” and Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre’s adaptation of “Lady Chatterley’s Lover” with Jack O’Connell — but then did something quite the opposite: They became a Marvel villain. Starring alongside Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman in 2024’s “Deadpool & Wolverine,” Corrin held their own as Cassandra Nova, the bald-headed evil twin sister of Professor X, with a restrained but still maniacal performance.
Going from small-budgeted period dramas to one of the most expensive films ever made was shocking, Corrin says. “I felt like I was at some kind of theme park all the time because things were just so overwhelming and I was like, ‘This cannot be real. I must be walking around with a visitor’s pass. Like, I can’t belong here.’”
But Reynolds, Jackman and director Shawn Levy “made it feel like a small thing, not this massive scary thing,” and took the time to get to know them before the shoot, inviting Corrin to hang out whenever they were all in the same city.
“They did so much to make me feel like I was stepping into something that wasn’t daunting at all but was just like a playground. And it really felt like that,” they add. “Especially with Cassandra, because I was in such a position of power as a character.”
Spoiler alert: Cassandra dies at the end of “Deadpool & Wolverine,” but everyone knows that’s not necessarily the end for Marvel characters. Would Corrin ever want to reprise the role? “I absolutely would, 100%,” Corrin exclaims. “I think her story’s not over. I would like to see a Professor X and Cassandra Nova bonding film — a sibling comedy like ‘Step Brothers.’ Make it happen! Internet, do your thing!”
Ironically, after spending a few years getting away from period dramas, Corrin’s next chapter is about to be headlined by one.
With the last major adaptation of Jane Austen’s seminal novel being the 2005 film with Keira Knightley and Matthew Macfadyen, the show — directed by “Heartstopper” helmer Euros Lyn — is poised to bring the love story to a new generation. But playing Lizzy is an honor Corrin doesn’t take lightly, especially as a self-declared “massive Austen fan.”
“I’m very daunted about it because of people’s completely natural love to compare things, which I also do, terribly,” they say. “But I’m also incredibly excited. I had the best time. It was one of my favorite jobs that I’ve done.”
Part of the reason was the number of women who surrounded them on set. “We had so many women in our crew, which was very rare. And obviously, there were so many women in that cast,” they say. “You just really feel the difference, energy-wise — you feel how special it is, but also the rarity means that there’s so much work to be done.”
Besides “Pride & Prejudice,” Corrin’s other upcoming project is an untitled A24 horror film alongside Hunter Schafer and Sophie Wilde, which they wrapped in Budapest last month. This phase of their career, Corrin says, is one of experimentation and defying expectations.
“The goal is to find the next thing that feels right in my gut, that I haven’t done before,” they say. “I would love to do something like ‘Succession’ or ‘The Pitt’ — that kind of fast-paced, high-stakes dialogue. You don’t have time to be like, ‘Ooh, I might gaze over there for a scene.’ I don’t want that anymore. I don’t want longing glances — no more longing glances!”
But first, they’re heading to Margate for some rest and relaxation. “I’m going to go down to the sea, see my dog and take a beat,” they say, springing up from the floor to show me photos of a shaggy black pup. “His name is Spencer.” Is that a Diana reference? “Yes,” they sigh, embracing the fact that they may never escape that role. “Mortifying!”
Charity Spotlight: War Child
Emma Corrin was introduced to the international charity War Child in 2020 through their “Crown” co-star Vanessa Kirby and director-producer Ben Caron. Founded in 1993, the organization aids children living in war zones, with a recent emphasis on those in Gaza, Ukraine, Lebanon and Sudan. Since Corrin studied education and early childhood development in college, it’s a cause they were eager to support. “These are generations of children that are not going to have a chance at a future where they can rebuild in their communities, even if the conflict stops where they’re living,” Corrin says, “and that really resonated with me.”
Today, one in five children globally — that’s about 520 million — are living amid conflict. It’s the highest number on record.
In addition to connecting with local partners, War Child provides resources, conducts research and enacts methodologies to help children cope with trauma and give them the education they need.
“It’s not like people are coming from different countries to help — these are people from the same cultures who will be able to speak the language of the children and really connect with them,” Corrin says.
War Child has the numbers to prove it. In 2024, the organization reached more than 2 million children around the world. Part of their recent funding came in the form of a compilation album produced by War Child Records. “Help(2)” — featuring Arctic Monkeys, Olivia Rodrigo, Cameron Winter and more — raised more than $1.6 million for the charity.
“It’s just such a fundamental thing that we should try and protect children at all costs,” Corrin says. “There are so many people that are innocent bystanders to these terrible conflicts all over the world, but children bear the brunt of it.”