Kristen: No one can understand what Diana endured
Hollywood star Kristen Stewart may be no stranger to paparazzi, but after essaying the role of Princess Diana on the silver screen, she feels that no one can really understand what it must have felt like to be her.
The movie Spencer premiered at the Venice Film Festival, with Stewart being the latest actor to play Diana, whose marriage to Britain’s Prince Charles ended in scandal and divorce. The princess later died in a Paris car crash in 1997, after fleeing photographers. The film focuses on Diana’s decision to flee the pressures of the royal family and take control of her life in the early ’90s.
“She was the most famous woman, she was the most photographed woman in the whole world,” Stewart told journalists ahead of the premiere.
“I have tasted a high level of that, but really kind of nowhere near that monumental, symbolic representation of an entire group of people, an entire country — and the world. I can relate but I don’t think anyone can understand what that felt like,” said the actor, of the royal family’s watch over Diana, who was expected to bend to protocol and was powerless to make her own decisions.
Stewart’s performance in the film has been called “brittle, tender, sometimes playful and not a little uncanny” by ScreenDaily.
In taking on the role, she joins a long list of actors who have sought to capture the spirit of the royal, most recently Emma Corrin, who this year won a Golden Globe for her portrayal in season four of The Crown.