Maybe I’m wrong, but I don’t think any on-screen portrayal of Princess Diana had ever worked before Emma Corrin nailed it in The Crown’s Season 4. Diana was just so particular to the era, her voice was so distinctive, and her journey was so well-known. How do you play someone larger than life? Emma and Peter Morgan figured it out, using Diana’s journey as part historical canon and part soap opera, aiming to get the broad strokes correct rather than holding themselves to complete historical accuracy. And now other projects are trying to figure out how to do their own spin on “Diana” as a historical character, trying to get the broad strokes right while sacrificing some historical accuracy. Such is the case of Spencer, the movie which is being filmed right now, with Kristen Stewart starring as Diana. Spencer will show Diana at Sandringham one weekend, deciding to end her marriage. But just like the drama over The Crown, royal reporters are already trying to nitpick the accuracy, and make it sound like the Windors are not happy.
The royal family will ‘not like’ the upcoming Princess Diana’s upcoming biopic starring Kristen Stewart, an expert has claimed. Robert Jobson, a royal biographer who knew the late Princess’ ‘well’ said that it was ‘inevitable’ The Firm won’t enjoy the picture ‘at all’.
The film, directed by Pablo Larraín and written by Steven Knight, will focus on a ‘pivotal’ weekend at Sandringham and also stars Timothy Spall, Sally Hawkins and Sean Harris.
‘I knew her as a person, it’s inevitable that the royals won’t like the biopic at all,’ Jobson, who has written multiple books about the royal, told Us Weekly. ‘They won’t like it, but they would have expected it. It is the truth, I think the most important thing is how well the actress can interpret the role. We’ll have to wait and see on that.
Jobson added that the photographs of Stewart looked ‘remarkably like Diana’ and ‘uncanny’.
‘I think what’s more important is the authenticity of the portrayal, and we’ll have to see how that develops because my understanding is it’s going to be a good script and it’s going to be a good premise, but it might not necessarily have actually happened in the way they’re saying,’ he continued.
It comes as new accuracy row has broken out over the upcoming film with royal experts branding it inaccurate because it’s set on a weekend at Sandringham which never happened. According to Jobson and fellow biographer Ingrid Seward, Diana had stopped visiting the estate before the period in which the drama is set. Robert added that Diana had already made the decision regarding her marriage ‘years before’, while Ingrid pointed out that the princess ‘never wanted a divorce’.
Yep. As I said when the film and plot was announced, that circa 1990-91, Diana and Charles were living separate lives and she didn’t just pop down to Sandringham for the weekend unless it was some kind of massively special occasion where she and Charles would have to put in an appearance together. Charles and Diana really separated their lives by the late 1980s, with Diana staying in Kensington Palace and Charles mostly staying at Highgrove, to be closer to Camilla. That being said, I do wonder if the broad strokes will still be correct, because at this point, Charles and Diana’s marriage was so toxic. Will they show that?
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, WENN.
Countdown to the spinning that this is all Meghan and Harry’s fault for something something.
Meghan shared a table with one of the supporting actors at some charity gala about ten years ago. Of course it’s her fault. She probably planted the idea in her head.
Those same rota rats are now hounding her son, daughter in law and grandson. There is a special place in hell for them.
Clarence House would be better off ignoring this movie because complaining about it will only bring more attention to it as what happened with the Crown. I expect the royal rota will go on the defensive for Charles.
Diana is probably second only to Jackie Kennedy, as one of the most famous women ever. Across all continents.
Like Jackie- there will continue to be a myriad of books, movies, documentaries, about Di.
They can whinge till the end, they’ll just have to deal.
Unless, they can find away to blame it on Harry & Meghan of course.🙄🙄🙄
There’s no way she’s second to Jackie Kennedy across all continents lol. Maybe from an American perspective but no. The average African mom doesn’t know who Jackie O is but grieved Diana like she was someone they knew.
I think they are probably parallel in fame/image impact but operating under different contexts. I think the Kennedy’s reach was much further than America though, it’s not hard to google stories of their pictures/memory in African households. I believe either Caroline or JFK Jr, specifically related a story of going to a fairly remote area of the world and seeing pictures and magazines of their parents.
I’m not sure how you would rank them first or second though. Jackie I think very much wanted to fade into a private wealthy upper class woman post-marriages and other than some targeted NYC charitable work really wasn’t out to keep a public image going (though the media interest in her never really waned, so she kind of had to) whereas Diana seems to have still been cultivating an image and role for herself as a humanitarian and this certainly kept her more in the public consciousness. I think the 20-30 years between both women at the peak of their fame probably influences this too. Media coverage/global reach changed a lot in that time. I don’t think Jackie was mourned the way Diana was when she died though. Probably because she had been living under the radar for quite awhile then and was older with cancer. Diana was so young and it was such a shock.
I’m American and would say I know much more about Diana but Diana’s story played out during my youth. Jackie Kennedy though alive in my youth wasn’t making headlines that I was aware of. I would probably name Diana and Madonna as the two best known famous women of my childhood.
I’d also say that Diana was bigger outside of US than Jackie, I’m saying this from European perspective. Jackie was more like another iconic, but distant politics-adjacent figure, while with Diana, everyone felt they knew her like some super-famous, glamorous neighbor. My grandma cried when Di died. People were shocked. Jackie O was too cool to influence people like this, while Di seemed very human in all her superstardom.
They may have been largely living apart but it’s also clear that that was not Diana’s preference. The very reason she played it up for the cameras for so long is because she always assumed that her loyalty would bring him back. Even when she found men who would fulfill emotional needs or rather man around her sensed those needs, she reportedly wanted her marriage back. As time went by she got increasingly desperate hence the Andrew Morton book which was apparently intended to bring things to a head. I don’t think she anticipated that it would go so wrong.
It’s makes me remember how different divorce was in those days. In the US, by the late 70s, it had become far more common and “acceptable” for many people…..but still. Keeping ones marriage intact was still important, particularly for women I think. Divorce felt like a failure, often a rejection. It was a psychic wound and meant a certain loss of status. My own parents came close to it in the late 80s, but they hung on and thankfully, got their marriage sorted out and vastly improved. They were a different generation, of course.
Divorce is still a liability for women, even if the guy was a documented ass. Great test: put the same woman on a dating site/ dating scenario as a widow and as a divorcee…changing nothing else. Watch the diff in responses over time.
And Diana had the example of her parents’ marriage hanging over her. She had issues but she really did desperately want it to work.
If course the RF will not like any film about Diana. They treated her like shit and these films remind everyone who lived through that era of this , as well as educating those who were too young or not yet born just how dreadful they are as human beings.
Well, since Kristen Stewart can only play one type, I’m afraid they’re going for the “Diana as a whiny, angsty, miserable princess” mode, which is unfortunate. Unless her English accent has improved since Huntsman, this’ll be cringeworthy.
I am very skeptical of her in this role.
She’s awfully good at lip-biting…
It’s quite obvious that the BRF won’t like any Diana thing, no? Most Diana things are sympathetic to Diana and not the BRF. Even if they don’t show the full extent of the marriage ala the Crown, the BRF still hates it.
Right? The only Diana thing that the BRF would like be a movie or show about how awful Diana was and how saintly the Queen and Charles et al were towards her. And that’s not going to be the movie that’s made because that’s not what happens.
Is the “Diana was a saint” narrative overdone and not entirely accurate? Of course, and we’ve discussed it here. But obviously the broad strokes of “the royal family was pretty awful to Diana” are true and the royals really are hoping that people forgot about that. But they havent.
The Crown really introduced Diana’s demise to a new generation. Even my mother, who lived through it, didn’t know the premise of the divorce until she watched the extent of Charles’ affair with Camilla and how much they gaslighted her, even before the marriage. Of course, I already knew all this thanks to Kaiser 😉 While many people say the Crown is exaggerated, it’s pretty close to how Diana described the situation.
The reality Diana experienced was likely a lot WORSE than the Crown.
The more attention they give anything Diana related the more the general public will watch and then stan Diana. Did they not learn with the Crown?
In this case “never complain, never explain” would actually work. Clarence house needs to stop getting their henchmen out in relation to anything diana
Gillian Anderson spoke about The Crown and said a lot was left out basically out of respect and what they portrayed could have been so much worse. Everyone knows the truth of that, including The Roysls, their courtiers and Royal reporters. They pretended that Princess Margaret gave a damn about her disabled cousins for a start and left out a shed load of lurid stuff from the Charles and Di disaster. The Royals really need to shut up, because the only way The Crown messed with facts was to make them seem better than they were. Some other production could really go to town if they push it too far. It’s not the 1950’s anymore and they dont command the same respect.
I would love to see a great TV series or film one day reenact everything that is known to have happened in Charles and Diana’s marriage. Including the tampon phone call. There is so much out there that is on the record, public knowledge, and so far, no fictionalized version of the events has dared to go all the way in showing it. But I hope one day, some Hollywood or London creative gets really bold and just doesn’t tamp the story down out of “respect” for the Royal Family.
If this movie can educate and remind another generation that petty and her family are very bad people and treated Diana like a lamb to the slaughter, then mission accomplished. I want people all over the world to see them for the absolute horrible racist assholes they are.
The best thing about Kristen Stewart in this role is that it her being cast will get under a lot of these royal reporters skin.
The fact is that Diana was on the right side of history. Her style of activism was basically what we see today as the best of social media — making important issues “trend” so people focus on them — in advance of social media. She was a superstar celebrity who actually could see what were the truly important crises: AIDS, child hunger, extreme poverty in the Global South, landmines, mental health awareness, and escaping emotional abuse. Everything she stood for and every cause she worked for, brought visibility to, and supported, has proven over time to be the actual things people are realizing we *all* need to care about. Extreme wealth disparities along racialized lines, supporting the LGBT+ community including on the public health front, remediating the violent and harmful traces of wars, and mental/emotional/relationship well-being — Diana was completely ahead of the curve and leading the charge on what is basically the larger human rights and civil rights movement.
Meghan and Harry are similarly ahead of the curve today, focusing on voting rights, mutual aid projects led by WOC, literacy/arts/creativity programs for working-class students, and the role of social media in spreading misinformation and hate speech/racist propaganda. And I think THAT is why the Royal Family hates them both (both Diana and Meghan). Yes it’s partly b/c neither Diana nor Meghan was invested in supporting the royal propaganda project — but WHY was neither woman willing to subjugate herself entirely to that project? It’s b/c that project was just simply not about anything except protecting the reputation of the Queen. Whereas Diana’s and Meghan’s hearts and minds are all about what they can do for PEOPLE. The Royal Family is about the Crown but the People’s Princesses were and are about people, ordinary people, people in need, people who are suffering, people who can benefit from a leader attracting attention to their situation and articulating to the world why they’re important. And that’s why the People’s Princesses are more beloved by most people all over the world than the Queen.
I mean, it’s Pablo Larrain. It’s very safe to say that this movie will NOT be what anyone is expecting, unless you’re expecting it to be weird.
The rota rats did not even have compassion for Diana so why are they pretending to care. Just own up to your nasty idiocy.
I lived thru Di & Chuck while it happened.
Zero interest in any Dianna movie.
I don’t care about The Crown either.
I enjoy the BRF much earlier in their history, The Tudors, anyone?