Kristen Stewart is trading in underwater horror adventures for a place in the Royal Family. The 30-year-old actress is set to portray Princess Diana in a new film from director Pablo Larraín (Jackie, Neruda).
The forthcoming project is titled Spencer and will be formally unveiled at the Virtual Cannes Market that runs from June 22nd-28th. Per a report from Deadline, the film’s plot focuses on Princess Diana’s — originally born Diana Frances Spencer — final Christmas holidays at the House of Windsor in Norfolk, England. Those three days in the early ’90s are considered “a critical weekend… when Diana decided her marriage to Prince Charles wasn’t working, and that she needed to veer from a path that put her in line to one day be queen.”
While coverage of the British royals is often overly romanticized, Larraín’s drama is said to be an “antithesis” of this fantastical trope. “We all grew up, at least I did in my generation, reading and understanding what a fairy tale is. Usually, the prince comes and finds the princess, invites her to become his wife and eventually she becomes queen. That is the fairy tale,” Larraín told Deadline. “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.”
“How and why do you decide to do that? It’s a great universal story that can reach millions and millions of people, and that’s what we want to do,” added the director. “We want to make a movie that goes wide, connects with a worldwide audience that is interested in such a fascinating life.”
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Steven Knight (Locke, Peaky Blinders) is set to handle the script for Spencer, which is expected to enter production early next year.
As we all know, Princess Diana and Prince Charles ended up separating in 1992, with a divorce finalized in 1996. The Princess of Wales later died in a horrific car accident in 1997 at the age of 36.
In related Stewart news, The Horror Virgin recently dived into a lengthy discussion on Stewart’s Seberg film from earlier this year. Revisit that ahead.
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