Kristen Stewart has continued to generate Oscar buzz for her performance as Princess Diana in the new film, Spencer. Although the actress didn’t know the princess IRL, she has spoken about how she felt connected to her throughout the press tour for the movie. Recently speaking with The AV Club, Stewart described the royal as a “very human subject” and said she thinks she was “a wonderful person” with “an unbelievable empathy… that is rare.”
“Before we made this movie,” Stewart said, “I didn’t have a very involved perception of her. I knew that she was somebody who was loved and that we lost too soon, and then in going through her life and the way other people experienced her and what I could glean from videos and pictures and things that she said herself… it is cryptic and there are so many layers to trying to interpret what her inner life may have been because it’s not like she had journals to read.”
Related: 6 ways Princess Diana and Meghan Markle are more alike than you think.
The film follows several days in 1991 over a Sandringham holiday weekend when Diana’s marriage to Prince Charles is falling apart. As many royal fans know, the couple eventually seperated not long after in 1992.
Stewart saying Diana had an “unbelievable empathy” is one thing that rings true from most who knew her, especially from her sons, Prince William and Prince Harry. “Our mother was an incredible woman who dedicated her life to service. She was resilient, brave, and unquestionably honest,” Prince Harry said earlier this year.
You can watch the trailer for Spencer below:
