It’s a haunting three days over Christmas 1991 at Sandringham, Queen Elizabeth’s estate in the U.K.
“Spencer” is directed by Pablo Larrain, who is known for “Jackie,” a biopic of another iconic woman, and it stars Kristen Stewart as the princess.
It was actually a couple of months ago, but I had mentioned to Howard Stern, like, a year ago that – he was asking me if I was into the institution of marriage and if I believed in it, if I found it romantic.
KURTZLEBEN: Absolutely, right? All right, but let’s get to this movie.
The extent of my knowledge or sort of involvement with the story was just that I knew that she was so coveted.
In this case, we kind of examined three days of her life, knowing that people would bring a personal memory or a personal projection to what her story was and kind of fill in the blanks naturally.
It really unflinchingly shows us Princess Diana’s disordered eating, but also how she dodged the paparazzi, how she distrusted many of the people around her.
STEWART: Once you really land on something and something feels pure and present and kind of out of your control, even if it was sad and exhausting to get to that moment, you’re kind of celebrating that you were able to get there.
And in this case, we were trying to sort of make me feel like a dressed-up doll, but they bolstered this performance in such a huge way.
And it became so painful and impossible for her to continue that she had to make the crazy, groundbreaking decision to leave the royal family, which, obviously, as we all know, is like a – it’s not a small thing.
Well, along those lines, when watching this movie, I was thinking about other recent TV shows and movies – we’ve had a run of them – that revisit famous women, rethink their stories, rethink how society treated them.
We really do have, like, a direct conversation about the stark difference in the way that men are treated in the media versus women, especially the way that they’re hero-worshipped or condemned.
Like, you really – I mean, even the last few years of her life, she became fully embodied and inhabited and, like, so present in her life that she really took control of.
KURTZLEBEN: One more question for you.
But what I really love is to watch something and be moved to a different place and feel like I, like, learned and grew.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR.