Oscars 2022: Kristen Stewart on bringing Princess Diana to life in Spencer, Pablo Larrain’s haunting royal drama, and the movie’s profound effect on them both
- Kristen Stewart says she felt Diana’s presence when she was filming, even if she was just fantasising. ‘It did feel, for lack of a more defined term, spiritual’
- Director Pablo Larrain says he ‘discovered that we were making a movie about motherhood’ after seeing the young actors playing Diana’s sons having fun together
The year 2022 is set to be a big one for Princess Diana watchers. Twenty-five years since she tragically died in a car crash in Paris, interest in the British royal has never been more intense.
Netflix show The Crown will return for its fourth season, with Elizabeth Debicki playing Diana in her final years as she divorces from Prince Charles. Before that, January’s Sundance Film Festival will premiere British filmmaker Ed Perkins’ The Princess, the first theatrical documentary about Diana that, according to The Hollywood Reporter, “is certain to spark the wrath of the royal family”.
Arriving ahead of both is Spencer, the new film from Pablo Larrain, the Chilean director of such acclaimed titles as Neruda and No. Starring Kristen Stewart as Diana, the film, it’s fair to say, will be the most unique take yet on the People’s Princess.
Set across three days of Christmas 1991, when Diana joins the rest of the royal family for festivities at the opulent Sandringham country house, Spencer is entirely from Diana’s fragile perspective. “That’s something that hadn’t been made before,” Larrain says. “That allowed us to create our own space and our version and vision of Diana.”
Stewart, the 31-year-old former Twilight star whose remarkable transformation into Diana has positioned her as a front runner in the coming Oscar race, admits to being utterly intrigued by the princess’ “unknowable” personality.