EXCLUSIVE: King Charles III’s Coronation is less than a month away and the docs about the new monarch’s life just keep coming.
Above is an exclusive clip from Charles: In His Own Words, the Disney+ and Hulu archive special from Diana: In Her Own Words maker Tom Jennings. He told Deadline the film reveals how the king is “much more complex than you’d think.”
“He plays a very, very long game and he plays it very well,” added Jennings. “He’s playing 3-D chess while most of us are playing checkers.”
The doc is set to premiere on Nat Geo on Friday, April 28, before streaming a day later on Hulu and then on May 5 on Disney+. The format uses moments from the King’s past to explain his actions in the modern day, such as his outspoken support for environmental causes. British royals are broadly discouraged from taking positions on important debate, but many believe Charles will seek to challenge this tradition.
The clip above recalls how in 1969, a 19-year-old Charles, found himself the subject of a series of protests ahead of his investiture as Prince of Wales, as Welsh nationalists objected to his English heritage. He was studying the language and culture a local university at the time, and his time there ultimately led him to support environmental causes.
“As an American, I knew Charles from the headlines and the Diana story, but I didn’t know much of anything about his investiture in 1969,” said Jennings. “There were major protests actually about him becoming Prince of Wales, but aged 19 he went out and met these people head on and charmed them. What was I doing at 19? Certainly not taming angry crowds.”
A second clip shows Charles meeting a local Welsh farmer after his investiture, during a tour that had a profound impact on his thinking in the future.
“Before making this documentary, I didn’t know he spent eight weeks at university in Wales to learn the language and history and how he spoke so passionately about Wales,” said Jennings. “I didn’t know he took a grand tour of Wales and how his environmentalism was effectively born during that trip.”