Spencer’s Kristen Stewart Recalls The ‘Spooky’ Feelings She Had While Playing Princess Diana
For the past week, Kristen Stewart has been off on the film festival trail with director Pablo Larraín, sharing their film Spencer, which brings a new perspective to the story of Princess Diana of Wales. In a 180 degree turn from Stewart taking on Joan Jett back in 2010 for The Runaways, the actress is taking on the tragic story of the late royal during the weekend she decides to end her marriage with Prince Charles. As Stewart recently expressed, playing the role became an intense process that even got a little “spooky.”
Spencer will not deal with the 1997 death of Princess Diana, but instead takes viewers back to 1991 at a time when the royal decided to make the controversial decision to remove herself from the crown. Kristen Stewart shared her experience taking on the character:
While speaking to the Los Angeles Times at the Telluride Film Festival in Colorado, Kristen Stewart got candid about some of the feelings that came up while emulating the late Princess, and it sounds like it got pretty creepy. A lot of Princess Diana’s story dives into the pitfalls of fame, which Stewart has certainly dealt with in her own way. Stewart did not want to invade her privacy more than the woman confronted in her life and death, but the presence of this definitely was felt by the actress. She continued:
Kristen Stewart seemed to have felt the weight of Princess Diana’s legacy while getting in character for the role as well. Diana died when she was just 36 years old and left behind two children, Prince William and Prince Harry, who were 15 and 12 at the time. The Princess of Wales had divorced Prince Charles one year earlier and died beside her romantic partner at the time, film producer Dodi Fayed.
The title of Spencer is in reference to Diana’s maiden name. The movie premiered at the Venice Film Festival last week to rave reviews from its first audiences. It has been named by some as the “best film of the year,” and there’s an aura around the Hollywood community that Kristen Stewart could be honored with an Oscar nomination for the role some time soon. Check out the Spencer teaser trailer:
The movie was directed by the filmmaker behind 2016’s Jackie, which followed Jackie Kennedy after the assassination of JFK and earned Natalie Portman an Oscar nomination. Spencer’s script was written by Steven Knight, who also penned Locke, Pawn Sacrifice and was behind many episodes of Peaky Blinders. Spencer is coming to theaters on November 5.
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Sarah El-Mahmoud has been with CinemaBlend since 2018 after graduating from Cal State Fullerton with a degree in Journalism. In college, she was the Managing Editor of the award-winning college paper, The Daily Titan, where she specialized in writing/editing long-form features, profiles and arts & entertainment coverage, including her first run-in with movie reporting, with a phone interview with Guillermo del Toro for Best Picture winner, The Shape of Water. Now she's into covering YA television and movies, and plenty of horror. Word webslinger. All her writing should be read in Sarah Connor’s Terminator 2 voice over.