'The Crown' actress reveals what she found hardest about playing Princess Diana

Emma Corrin struggled with dancing scenes in The Crown.

The 24-year-old actress spent hours learning various steps as part of her portrayal of Princess Diana in the Netflix regal drama series, but admitted they didn't come naturally to her.

She told the Daily Mail newspaper's Baz Bamigboye: "I definitely could not dance.

"Diana’s love of dance was how she expressed herself emotionally, I think.

"There was a running joke at school that I danced like a spider because my limbs are too long.

"I knew jazz and tap. But it’s hard to learn ballet when you’re 24!

"I really held on to the fact that Diana wasn’t a professional dancer."

Emma recently admitted she hopes the princess - who died in a car crash in 1997 - would be "proud" of her performance on the show.

She said: "Everyone has this ownership. [Public expectation has been] overwhelming since the beginning."

Explaining she wants to do Diana proud, she added: "I know that’s strange and cheesy, but I feel like I know her."

As part of her research, Emma spoke with bulimia sufferers and experts from eating disorder Beat and admitted she could understand why the princess was gripped with the mental health condition, which sees sufferers binge on food before purging to get it out of their bodies.

She said: "Drawing on my experience, not that I’ve experienced that kind of self-harm, but mental health in general, it can lead you down a very dark path when you’re struggling to cope, when things feel out of control.

“Diana very much doesn’t have the love and comfort and attention she needs from the man she loves or the family, who aren’t really acting as a family to her. There is a build-up of emotion she can’t deal with and making herself sick is a way of taking back control.”

Season four of The Crown is set to hit Netflix this weekend on November 15.

- Bang! Showbiz