The Crown star Emma Corrin on "mad" experience of recreating Princess Diana's iconic wedding dress

Actress Emma Corrin, who plays Lady Diana Spencer (later Princess Diana) in season four of Netflix's royal drama, has revealed she went through "four or five" fittings to get the wedding dress just right, and was even told to summon her own mother to experience the special "moment".

But does that mean the dress gets a lot of screen time? Absolutely not.

Describing how it felt to wear the dress, Corrin told RadioTimes.com: "Oh mad. I mean, heavy. Very heavy actually."

She explained: "The wedding dress was crazy, because it was kind of – I loved the process of the fittings actually, weirdly, almost more than the wearing it on the day. Because we don't really... we don't actually show the wedding – I'm in the wedding dress for, like, a fraction of a moment.

"But actually I had so many fittings for it, I think about probably four or five, and each of one of those was several hours long."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlDUp8bCxj4

Princess Diana's dress was designed and created by David and Elizabeth Emanuel for her wedding to Prince Charles in 1981.

The Emanuels generously gave the patterns to The Crown's Emmy-winning costume designer Amy Roberts, who – according to the show's Twitter account – wanted to "capture the same spirit and style" of the original "without creating a replica".

Corrin told us: "From the very moment of when they had the fake material and they were trying to measure me and get the shapes right, and then fitting it bit by bit – and it was all broken into different sections because it's so chunky – it was incredible.

"And I felt like I really got to know it very well because I spent so much time with it in fitting, and it was wonderful to be privy to that process.

"I remember actually when we were in the wedding dressing fittings, Amy the costumes person saying: 'You should really get your mum in here,' – she said, 'I think your mum should come. Because it's one of those moments.'

"I was like, 'I'm not actually getting married,' but also completely knew what she meant and was like, 'Yeah actually I really do want my mum here!'"

The Crown season four will be released on Sunday 15th November. Looking for something else to watch? Check out our guide to the best series on Netflix and best movies on Netflix, visit our TV Guide, or find out about upcoming new TV shows 2020.