How Playing Princess Diana Liberated Kristen Stewart In This Surprising Way
The new movie "Spencer," due out November 5 offers a different take on Princess Diana. Rather than telling her entire story, as TV films have done in this past, "Spencer" takes a few days towards the end of her marriage to Prince Charles and offers a dramatic interpretation of what might have happened during the Christmas holiday that Charles and Diana spent with the Queen at her estate in Sandringham (via Best Life).
Actress Kristen Stewart has already received rave reviews for her portrayal of the late princess, with The Daily Beast saying, "There is no actress alive today who can hold a close-up like Kristen Stewart. As the camera homes in, you feel her defenses intensify; it feels, more than anything, like a violation. And it's why she's perfectly suited for the role of Princess Diana, the tortured royal felled by a voyeuristic tabloid press."
Stewart herself admits that she found herself embodying Diana in a myriad of ways and threw herself into the role on instinct rather than research, according to the Los Angeles Times. In fact, there was one scene that gifted Stewart with a side of Diana she never expected.
Kristen Stewart lost some inhibitions playing Diana
The Netflix series "The Crown" makes it clear that Princess Diana loved to dance. Season four featured scenes of Princess Diana dancing (and roller skating) around Buckingham Palace before she even married Charles, and also retold the story of how Diana arranged to dance for her husband very publicly on stage for his birthday.
In "Spencer," there is also a dance scene that Stewart threw herself into over the course of many days during the filming. "We shot it at the end of every single day for about 30 minutes just randomly throughout the house in different outfits. Some days I was f— angry, some days I was an absolute mess. Some days I felt an immense desire," Stewart told the Los Angeles Times. "I felt need and craving and wanting. And sometimes I felt really small and lonely and stupid, and then sometimes really vindictive."
After filming those scenes, Stewart admitted she lost all inhibitions about dancing in front of others. "I will say now this genuinely did kind of take off whatever leash I had on my energy," Stewart said. "This liberated the dancer inside of me. That is one thing I've taken from her. I will absolutely get up in front of anyone now. I'm just not embarrassed anymore. It's like ripping off the Band-Aid. Before, I just couldn't move. It just wasn't something that felt good."