Following her turn as Abby Holland in last year’s popular Hulu offering Happiest Season, Twilight actress Kristen Stewart is next slated to star as Princess Diana of Wales, born Diana Frances Spencer, in Spencer. With Stewart’s performance in Spencer having collected a lot of awards buzz as the Pablo Larraín-directed movie has made the film festival circuit in recent weeks, it’s looking like this will go down as one of the most notable entries in her filmography. That said, Stewart has now explained why she felt her agreeing to play Princess Diana felt irresponsible when she first signed onto the project.
During Spencer’s time to shine at the Toronto International Film Festival, Kristen Stewart revealed that when she said yes to participating in the movie, she hadn’t even read the script penned by Allied’s Steven Knight. Stewart recalled the conversation between her and Pablo Larraín thusly (via Indiewire):
He called me on the phone. At first I hadn’t read the script yet, and he proposed this idea and said he was doing this sort of weird tone poem about Diana, and asked whether or not I would be interested in tackling the subject at all, before he sent the script. Kind of without thinking, very irresponsibly, I said ‘Yes, absolutely.'
There’s no denying that it definitely helps for a big-time actor to read a script before deciding whether or not to participate in a movie or TV show. Simply being told about the role they’re being envisioned for might not be enough to paint a full picture of the project, and it may turn out that this actually wasn’t a good fit for the actor. As far as Kristen Stewart is concerned, she added that normally when she accepts a role, it comes from a place of “trust me, I can do this.” However, she didn’t have that feeling when she decided to play Princess Diana in Spencer. The actress continued:
I could have totally fucked it up. In the moment right before I was going to say, in a word, yes or no, I was like ‘Who are you if you don’t say yes?’
Evidently Kristen Stewart did ultimately do a spectacular job with the Princess Diana role in Spencer if she’s being discussed as a potential nominee at the next Academy Awards ceremony. Still, despite having not read the Spencer script ahead of agreeing to star in the movie, Stewart found that the story was indeed a good fit for her upon reading it. Stewart also didn’t feel the pressure to play Princess Diana “perfectly,” although the one aspect of her the actress knew she had to nail was her being a mother, with Stewart describing Diana as not being “very good at protecting herself, but she was really good at protecting” her children.
In case you haven’t seen it yet, watch the Spencer trailer below to get your first taste of Kristen Stewart as Princess Diana.
Taking place across three days in 1991 at Queen Elizabeth II’s Sandringham Estate, Spencer follows Princess Diana’s tumultuous life ahead of her divorce from Charles, Prince of Wales, played by Jack Farthing. Kristen Stewart’s other costars include Timothy Spall, Sean Harris, Sally Hawkins, Steele Gonet and Richard Sammel. The movie filmed in various locations in Germany and the United Kingdom from January to April of 2021.
Spencer arrives in theaters on November 5, and don’t forget to look through our 2021 release schedule to learn what other movies are coming out before the year is over.
