For Spencer (Kristen Stewart played the late princess), Larraín felt like there hadn’t been a movie about Princess Diana that he thought was particularly interesting, although there’s always been a lot of focus on her. “There’s so much about her that represents so many people,” Larraín says. “Even if it’s a story of a princess and the royal family in England, it’s something that oddly touches many, many people, not only women.”
Larraín’s approach to telling female stories from a male lens is exactly why Stewart still thinks fondly of Spencer‘s production days.
“The respect and reverence Pablo has for the female form and experience is both aesthetic and spiritual,” says Stewart. “I sometimes felt like his avatar. Like he could have ‘played’ Diana. That is how close we felt on the film. The time he has to attempt to understand and the healthy amount of awareness that he never will be able to fully understand from a first-person perspective the innately female experience is why he is so adept at creating paths toward depicting the truth. His gaze feels kind and curious. And his storytelling holds you. And it [big-ups] our diminished feelings. His movies feel like tender acts. To work for him feels the same.”
