The actress has won raves for her performance in the movie „Spencer,“ about the princess‘ life outside the range of photographers‘ cameras. It’s a role, she says, she loves „like a psycho.“
In her all-too brief lifetime, Princess Diana held a few official titles, but her unofficial title, „the People’s Princess,“ is the one that stuck. She was also known as the most photographed woman in the world: her every move, and every outfit, captured on camera, even in her most difficult times, like the days after her separation from Prince Charles. „Whatever uncertainties the last few weeks may have brought,“ she said in 1992, „I want you to be certain of this: our work together will continue unchanged.“ Of course, we can’t know what Diana’s life was really like when she was out of camera range, but that hasn’t stopped filmmakers from trying to fill in the blanks. „Spencer“ (the title comes from Diana’s maiden name) is, in the words of director Pablo Larrain, a fable based on true events. The events in this case are a 1991 Christmas gathering at the Queen’s estate, back when Diana’s marriage to Prince Charles was going down in flames, and she was presumably fed up to here with the constraints of being a royal. Kristen Stewart and Jack Farthing as Princess Diana and Prince Charles in „Spencer“: In the film, Diana is played with brittle intensity by actress Kristen Stewart. She seems to nail every detail, from her high-born accent, to her kind-of-trapped-animal look, to her relationship with the press – something Stewart knows a thing or two about. Correspondent Tracy Smith asked Stewart, „Can you get out without being followed by cameras?“ „Sometimes, yeah. If I run really fast!“ At 31, Stewart, like Diana herself, has become the kind of celebrity that the paparazzi can’t seem to get enough of. She shrugs off comparisons with the late Princess Di, but she’s fiercely proud of how she played her. Smith asked, „Tell me what you felt or thought when you first saw the movie all together?“ „I think it’s Diana; it’s probably not, it’s our view of her,“ she replied. „It’s our love for her. And when I watched the movie I couldn’t stop crying. I just couldn’t, like, ‚cause at the end it kind of, it has this sort of lighter note, but I feel the loss of her so intensely, so often.“ To do Diana justice, Stewart spent months perfecting the princess‘ speech and movement. But inwardly she was so nervous that, in the days before the cameras rolled, she couldn’t even get her mouth to open.
