The actor who portrays Princess Diana’s boyfriend Dodi Fayed in the new biopic about the late royal says the film will change perceptions about the much-maligned Egyptian playboy.
Cas Anvar, who plays Dodi alongside Naomi Watts’s Princess of Wales in the upcoming movie Diana, says his extensive research into the 42-year-old film producer revealed he wasn’t the bad guy many painted him to be.
“I was not aware that the general public, especially in Europe, viewed Dodi as a bad guy,” the Canadian actor told MailOnline.
“I was quite surprised when I heard it, because that is not how I portray him. He could have been a typical rich, unsavoury, unpleasant guy, because he didn’t have to answer to anyone.
“But I have talked dozens of people and they all say he was a kind man.”
Diana focuses on the much-loved princess’s love-life leading up to the 1997 Paris car crash that took her and Dodi’s lives.
“What happens in this movie will challenge quite a lot of commonly accepted things that people think about Dodi and Diana,” Cas says.
“One thing people don’t know is that they knew each other from childhood and they used to play together as teens. And he genuinely loved Diana – he didn’t have any reason to fake that.”
Dodi’s father’s, billionaire business magnate Mohamed Al-Fayed, maintains that Prince Charles and his father Prince Philip ordered the death of the couple because Charles was angry that Diana was dating Dodi.
Both the royal and Fayed families have been invited to next month’s London premiere. Neither is expected to attend.
Related video: Naomi Watts Stars in Diana .
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