First look: Kristen Stewart as Princess Diana in Pablo Larraín’s ‘Spencer’

Principal photography has begun on Spencer, starring Kristen Stewart (Personal Shopper, Clouds of Sils Maria) as Diana, Princess of Wales, which focuses on one weekend in the life of Princess Diana, as she spends the Christmas holiday with the royal family at the Sandringham estate in Norfolk, and decides to leave her marriage to Prince Charles. Filming will take place in Germany and the UK and an autumn 2021 launch is anticipated. 2022 marks the 25^th anniversary of Diana’s death.

Synopsis: December, 1991: The Prince and Princess of Wales’ marriage has long since grown cold. Though rumors of affairs and a divorce abound, peace is ordained for the Christmas festivities at Sandringham Estate. There’s eating and drinking, shooting and hunting. Diana knows the game. This year, things will be a whole lot different.

Cast members joining Stewart include BAFTA Award nominee Timothy Spall (Mr. Turner, The Party), Academy Award nominee Sally Hawkins (The Shape of Water, Paddington) and Sean Harris (Mission: Impossible – Fallout, Prometheus).

Spencer is directed by Pablo Larraín (Jackie, Neruda) and written by Steven Knight (Locke, Peaky Blinders and Academy Award nominee for Dirty Pretty Things). The film is produced by Juan de Dios Larraín (Jackie, A Fantastic Woman, Gloria) for Fabula Films, Jonas Dornbach and Janine Jackowski (Toni Erdmann, A Fantastic Woman) for Komplizen Film and BAFTA award winner and Academy award nominee Paul Webster (Anna Karenina, Atonement) for Shoebox Films.

‘SPENCER is a dive inside an emotional imagining of who Diana was at a pivotal turning point in her life. It is a physical assertion of the sum of her parts, which starts with her given name; Spencer. It is a harrowing effort for her to return to herself, as Diana strives to hold onto what the name Spencer means to her.’

Kristen Stewart

Larraín’s creative team includes Director of Photography Claire Mathon (Portrait of a Lady on Fire), Costume Designer Jacqueline Durran (Academy award-winner for Little Women and Anna Karenina), Make Up and Hair Designer Wakana Yoshihara (Murder On The Orient Express, High Rise) and Guy Hendrix Dyas (Academy Award nominee for Passengers and Inception) is the Production Designer. Composing the original score is Academy Award, BAFTA and Grammy Award nominee, Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood (You Were Never Really Here, Phantom Thread). Executive producers are Tom Quinn, Jeff Deutchman and Christina Zisa for NEON and Michael Bloom, Maria Zuckerman and Ryan Heller for Topic Studios.

We are extremely grateful for the support of our distributors worldwide, our partners and funders who have shown tremendous commitment to us in these extraordinary times.  With Kristen Stewart, Steven Knight and the rest of our fantastic team both in front and behind the camera we are bringing SPENCER to the world. It is an independently produced film made for the big screen about an iconic woman’s own declaration of independence. We couldn’t be more excited!’

Producers Jonas Dornbach, Janine Jackowski, Juan de Dios Larraín, Paul Webster, Pablo Larraín 

FilmNation Entertainment handled international sales with all key territories selling out of the Cannes virtual market. The CAA Media Finance group sold to NEON and Topic Studios to distribute in the United States, STXinternational will distribute the film in the UK, France, Italy and Benelux and DCM will distribute in Germany. Other territories sold include: Australia/NZ (Roadshow), Latin America, Spain and Portugal (Sun), South Korea (Green Narae), Japan (Tohokushina), Scandinavia (Scanbox), Canada (Elevation), CIS/Baltics (Central Partnership), Eastern Europe (Forum), Middle East (Italia), Singapore (Shaw), Greece/Cyprus (Spentzos), Hong Kong (Golden Scene), India/Pakistan (Impact Films India), Israel (Lev), Turkey (FilmArti), South Africa (Empire), Taiwan (Moviecloud) and Thailand (M Pictures).

Spencer is supported by the German Federal Film Fund (DFFF), medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg, German Federal Film Board (FFA), Film- und Medienstiftung NRW and HessenFilm und Medien.

Images courtesy of Pablo Larraín, Andrea Raffin / Shutterstock

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Erik Anderson

Erik Anderson is the founder/owner and Editor-in-Chief of AwardsWatch and has always loved all things Oscar, having watched the Academy Awards since he was in single digits; making lists, rankings and predictions throughout the show. This led him down the path to obsessing about awards. Much later, he found himself in film school and the film forums of GoldDerby, and then migrated over to the former Oscarwatch (now AwardsDaily), before breaking off to create AwardsWatch in 2013.

He is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, accredited by the Cannes Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and more, is a member of the International Cinephile Society (ICS), The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics (GALECA), Hollywood Critics Association (HCA) and the International Press Academy. Among his many achieved goals with AwardsWatch, he has given a platform to underrepresented writers and critics and supplied them with access to film festivals and the industry and calls the Bay Area his home where he lives with his husband and son.

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