With Royal Baby fever finally dying down, why not take another opportunity to peer through the curtains and into the lives of Britain's royal family? At least this time it's taking the relatively respectable form of a biopic, with Naomi Watts starring in this new international trailer for Diana, about the departed Princess of Wales. The first trailer, which premiered back in June, saved the big Watts-as-Diana reveal until the end, but this one actually allows us to see the performance in action, and Watts looks… well, like a blond woman with a British accent. Which I guess is enough to pass for Diana herself.
Instead of a sweeping account of the princess's entire life, Diana focuses on a very specific period, in which Diana was engrossed in her work against land mines, divorced from Prince Charles, and engaged in two different relationships. Naveen Andrews seems to have the much bigger part as Dr. Hasnat Khan, the Pakistani heart surgeon whom some claim was the true love of her life. At some point int he film Cas Avnar will appear as Dodi Fayed, the heir to the Harrods department store fortune who eventually died alongside Diana in the famous Paris car crash. Nothing, this trailer included, has made it clear whether the story will include Diana's death, but the major role of the paparazzi here will at least strongly remind us of it.
Diana doesn't yet have a release date in the United States, but with a September 5 premiere planned in London a debut here ought to not be far off, especially if Watts wants a shot at a Best Actress Oscar nomination. She earned something of a surprise nod earlier this year for her work in the harrowing tsunami drama The Impossible, and playing a famous real-life figure is an even more guaranteed route to an award than a survivor of a natural disaster. Funnily enough, she'll probably wind up competing against her pal Nicole Kidman, who's playing yet another famous blond princess in Grace of Monaco. Can the princess who died tragically beat out the princess who won an Oscar? Luckily, it's still August, so we at least have a few months before we have to start seriously asking those questions.
