Kristen Stewart: It was remarkable that Princess Diana ‘was so friendless’
Kristen Stewart: It was remarkable that Princess Diana ‘was so friendless’
Kristen Stewart is one of Vanity Fair’s Hollywood Portfolio covers, and the interview was conducted after she got nominated for an Oscar for Spencer. Kristen’s Oscar campaign was a rollercoaster ride!! She honestly just said, months ago, that she found Oscar campaigning a bit embarrassing, and suddenly she was snubbed for a SAG and BAFTA nomination. It just shows you how Hollywood stars are not only expected to wage full-on campaigns for awards, they’re also supposed to feign excitement about it. In any case, Kristen managed to recommit to her campaign at just the right moment and here we are. Some highlights from her VF interview:
She’s not going to play it cool. “Everyone wants to win an Oscar, you know?”
Channeling Diana’s loneliness. “One of the remarkable things is that she was so friendless… I’m constantly going, ‘Where was your f–king homie?’ ”
On portraying Diana’s bulemia: “I wanted to make sure that was not glossed over,” says Stewart. She prepared herself beforehand and, in the scene, attempted to really purge. (“I’ll do f-cking anything.”) Larraín, who was operating the camera, pushed in on her anguished face, capturing the act, but Stewart struggled. “I couldn’t throw up on this movie, even when I really should have. I felt like absolute sh-t and I could not get it up, and I know it was because my body was just like…the idea of that was so untouchable.”
She only watched snippets of the explosive Prince Harry and Meghan Markle interview with Oprah Winfrey. “It was almost too hot to touch in terms of how personal it was for me at that time,” she says. I ask her if it’s strange to think about Harry and Meghan living in California. As improbable as it seems, Stewart was unaware of their move. “That’s so funny. I wonder where,” she muses. Then she stops. “I’m no better than anyone! Of course I want to know.” Santa Barbara, I tell her. She nods approvingly. “That makes sense. It’s really nice up there.”
Her engagement to Dylan Meyer. “I love being engaged. It’s different.… I just feel so happy and lucky.”
For what it’s worth, Diana legitimately felt alone and under siege at family events and holidays where she was forced to be out of London. She was “alone” during those times, without her friends and her support system. But when she was in London, she did have friends. Most of her biographers talk about the collection of surrogate-mother friends she had: older women who helped her, went to lunch with her and looked after her. Plus, you know, the moment in Spencer, that time frame, was when Diana was already having her affair with James Hewitt.
I think it’s interesting that Kristen didn’t know that Harry and Meghan moved to California? Like… was she really not paying attention? Or is that a coy bluff to avoid the conversation?
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Backgrid, cover courtesy of VF.