By Marisa Laudadio
8:45am PST, Feb 20, 2026
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Years after her Oscar-nominated turn as
Princess Diana, the actress who played her has revealed the late British royal still lingers in ways she can't shake.
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Kristen Stewart, who earned an Academy Award nomination for best actress for her portrayal of Princess Diana in the 2021 film
Spencer, revealed she felt "haunted" by the late Princess of Wales. "I still am," Stewart told
The Telegraph during an interview in London. "I can't drive round this city, and Paris for that matter" — Diana tragically died following a car accident in the City of Lights at age 36 in 1997 — "without thinking about her," Stewart added. "All the love that poured out of this woman… I can cry about her at any moment."
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The movie Spencer, written by Peaky Blinders creator Stephen Knight and directed by Oscar-nominated filmmaker Pablo Larraín, depicted the bleak 1991 Christmas that Princess Diana spent at the late Queen Elizabeth II's Sandringham estate, as her marriage to the future King Charles III was crumbling.
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Kristen Stewart initially thought filmmaker Pablo Larraín, who also directed
Jackie — the 2016 movie starring
Natalie Portman as late first lady
Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis — was misguided in wanting to cast her as Princess Diana. "I told Pablo he was insane and he should probably hire someone else, but he refused to accept that," Stewart recently told
The Telegraph. "There were some massive distinctions between her and me. It was the statuesque thing," 5-foot-5 Stewart explained (Diana was 5-foot-10), and "it was the eye color — I have green eyes; she has very famously blue eyes that match her [sapphire engagement] ring. So I was like, 'Should we make the engagement ring green, then?'" Stewart said those details "were pulling me under and Pablo was like, 'You really must detach from those things — this is about spirit.'"
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Spencer director Pablo Larraín saw "a little bit of overlap in terms of our experience. And there was something about my energy,"
Kristen Stewart — who for years couldn't escape media scrutiny during the height of success of the
Twilight films — shared with
The Telegraph, reflecting on why the filmmaker thought she was the right actress to play the late Princess Diana. "She was plucked, plucked to death [by paparazzi]," Stewart said. "And her rebellious qualities felt so desperate, and so young and so vulnerable." By the time they finished making the movie, "I did feel a bit like a shell," the Oscar nominee added, "and I think she did too. That was the point."
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Looking back on her experience, one key way
Kristen Stewart felt she was able to embody Princess Diana in
Spencer was by using her wardrobe as a tool. "The clothes were part of the armor," the Academy Award nominee told
The Telegraph. "They allowed me to step into her physical space and create images of her in this prison of a castle yet wearing lavish, stunning pieces of clothing. That is a poem in itself."
