Spencer First-Look: Filming Begins on Kristen Stewart’s Princess Diana Film

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Spencer First-Look: Filming Begins on Kristen Stewart’s Princess Diana Film

NEON has announced that production on director Pablo Larraín’s upcoming Princess Diana film titled Spencer has officially begun and will take place in Germany and in the UK. The announcement also came with the release of the film’s first official photo which you can check out below, featuring a first look at Kristen Stewart (Panic Room, Clouds of Sils Maria).

“SPENCER is a dive inside an emotional imagining of who Diana was at a pivotal turning point in her life,” Stewart said in a statement. “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.”

Written by Steven Knight (Eastern Promises, Peaky Blinders, Locke), Spencer covers a critical weekend in the early ’90s when Diana decided her marriage to Prince Charles wasn’t working and that she needed to veer from a path that put her in line to one day be queen. The film takes place over three days, in one of her final Christmas holidays in the House of Windsor in their Sandringham estate in Norfolk, England.

The official synopsis reads: December, 1991: The Prince and Princess of Wales’ marriage has long since grown cold. Though rumours 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.

The movie won’t deal with Princess Diana’s tragic death after she left that palace life, but will examine the fraying of the relationship with her husband and her ferocious love for her sons Prince William and Prince Henry.

Joining Stewart are BAFTA Award nominee Timothy Spall (Mr. Turner, The Party), Academy Award nominee Sally Hawkins (The Shape of Water), and Sean Harris (Mission: Impossible – Fallout).

Spencer will be produced by Larraín along with Fabula partner Juan de Dios, Jonas Dornbach, Janine Jackowski, and Paul Webster. The movie will be released by NEON, with plans to be announced at a later date.