In her lifetime, Princess Diana was known as the most photographed woman in the world, a near-constant subject of stories and rumors about her every move. Despite the abundance of pictures and words written about her, there’s considerably less available about how Diana may have felt about her extraordinary circumstances.
Spencer is an effort to bring Diana’s internalized tumult to the surface, according to Kristen Stewart, who plays her in the film. The Oscar-nominated actress discussed making the film during a special screening in New York on March 10th. She credited the director Pablo Larraín for fully realizing the complex emotions that swirled beneath Diana’s glamorous image.
“I think the reason [Spencer] has perspective and an emboldened viewpoint is because [Larrain] was so committed to her interior life,” Stewart said during the Q&A with Entertainment Weekly’s Leah Greenblatt. “The fact that he aggrandizes those feelings in a visual way is so nice. He was, like, ‘I don’t know exactly what she did, said, thought, felt in whatever moment that everyone attaches to.’ But to actually visualize a dream of hers or a nightmare or a fantasy, it pays credence and real f*cking honor to a woman’s inner feelings and life in a way that’s surprising.”
According to Stewart, Spencer differs from the countless documentaries and television specials about the People’s Princess by leveraging the fantastical power of cinema. “To externalize an internal feeling is something that cinema allows us to do. I can describe a dream to you, but the conversation will never get as close as what you can do with a movie. We didn’t make this movie to just say the s**t we already know. We did something to say, ‘just imagine.’ I think it’s a compassionate act.”
Spencer’s existence as a “dream” and “personal projection” allowed Stewart to focus on her emotional connection to Diana.
“It was about wanting to protect her. My opinion of her is only mine. My relationship with her is only mine and that’s all the movie is. [Diana] touched people in the most literal way, but you cannot reach back and touch her and you want to. It’s what isolates her and it hurts and it’s very hard to define, but the only way you can do it is very personally.”
Much of the discussion around Stewart’s performance has revolved around how she looked and sounded, which was the primary reason behind her research for the role. However, Stewart shared the importance of Diana’s nonverbal communication, and how it was key to tapping into her.
“Physically, she’s so expressive. Everything she does is an undulation or hiding. She can be saying, ‘hi, how are you,’ and her eyes are saying, ‘please save me.’ The physical stuff is how she spoke.”
Larraín’s shooting of Spencer, either from her perspective or from an “assaultingly close” wide angle, successfully captured Diana at her most emotionally vulnerable. “It’s the most visible I’ve ever felt. In this movie, I couldn’t hide from him. I couldn’t hide from her.”
Ultimately, Diana has endured in the public’s imagination because, according to Stewart, there’s still so much we don’t, and likely never will, know about her.
“If it was easy to define exactly who she was and what her experience was, we would not be still talking about it. It’s all the gaps and all the areas in which we’re like, ‘how did that happen?’”
Spencer doesn’t claim to offer any answers. It does, through Stewart’s acclaimed performance, put viewers in Diana’s shoes as she ponders the question.
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A late-stage millennial lover of most things related to pop culture. Becomes irrationally irritated by Oscar predictions that don’t come true.
