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Kristen Stewart just landed a new role: Princess Diana.
Deadline reports that the actor will play the leading royal lady in a new film by Pablo Larraín, Spencer. The biopic addresses a specific, and tumultuous, time frame for the House of Windsor: when Diana decided she wanted a divorce from her husband, Prince Charles, and therefore would never be queen consort. The entire plot occurs over a few days and at one location — the royal compound of Sandringham.
“Usually, the prince comes and finds the princess, invites her to become his wife, and eventually she becomes queen,” said Larraín. “When someone decides not to be the queen, and says, I’d rather go and be myself, it’s a big, big decision, a fairy tale upside down. I’ve always been very surprised by that and thought it must have been very hard to do. That is the heart of the movie.”
Larraín has considered fractured fantasies and damaged dynasties before: Jackie, his critically acclaimed film about first lady Jackie Kennedy in the days after JFK’s assassination, netted Natalie Portman an Oscar nomination in 2017.
The last major film to take on the troubled life of the late princess was 2013’s Diana, starring Naomi Watts. It failed to impress critics. Now, however, two high-profile portrayals are on the horizon: Stewart’s and Emma Corrin’s in The Crown. Neither the film nor the show’s new season has a release date yet. Spencer is expected to begin filming in 2021, and The Crown will likely be released sometime in late 2020 or early next year.
Will either of these prestige projects make a mark during awards season? It’s too early to tell. But one thing is for certain: The dark underbelly of Buckingham Palace continues to capture Hollywood’s imagination.
Story originally published on Vogue.com
