Kristen Stewart to play Princess Diana in her biopic ‘Spencer’

Hollywood director Pablo Larrain has announced the first details about his new venture, a biopic of late Princess Diana. The Twilight Saga star, Kristen Stewart will be playing the role of Princess Diana in the movie titled ‘Spencer’.

The biopic will be set in the early 1990s focusing on the breakdown of Diana’s marriage to Prince Charles as per the statement of Pablo Larrain. It will be scripted by Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight.

Stewart,30 is best known for playing Bella Swan in the hit Twilight franchise from 2008-12 and also appeared in last year’s Charlie’s Angels remake and 2014’s Snow White and the Huntsman.

Director Pablo Larrain said Stewart was “Kristen is one of the great actors around today. She can be many things, and she can be very mysterious and very fragile an ultimately very strong as well, which is what we need.”

This will not be the first biopic directed by Larrain as she also made Jackie, 2016’s biopic of Jackie Kennedy. He won critical praise for this 2016 film about the wife of U.S. President John F. Kennedy.

Charles and Diana separated in 1992 and divorced four years later in what was an unprecedented move in modern times for an heir to the British throne. Diana died in a Paris car crash in 1997 at the age of 36.

The independent movie, to be directed by Chilean Pablo Larrain, is expected to start shooting in 2021. No casting was announced for Charles.

“We decided to get into a story about identity, and around how a woman decides somehow, not to be the queen. She’s a woman who, in the journey of the movie, decides and realizes that she wants to be the woman she was before she met Charles,” said the director.

The movie, titled Spencer after Diana’s maiden name, is the latest in a string of movies, television series, documentaries, and even a Broadway musical about the life of the late princess.

“When someone decides not to be the queen, and says, I’d rather go and be myself, it’s a big decision, a fairy tale upside down. 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. We want to make a movie that goes wide, connects with a worldwide audience that is interested in such a fascinating life,” Larrian added.

The Princess of Wales has been portrayed on screen before in movies and series. Naomi Watts played her in the critically panned 2013 film Diana. And the princess is due to appear in the fourth season of Netflix’s royal drama The Crown, portrayed by newcomer Emma Corrin.