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Princess Diana’s brother trashes Kristen Stewart’s ‘terrible’ “Spencer” movie

Careers October 11, 2026 02:03 PM
Princess Diana’s brother trashes Kristen Stewart’s ‘terrible’ “Spencer” movie

Princess Diana's brother, Charles Spencer, trashed Kristen Stewart's experimental 2021 movie Spencer.

Spencer said he felt the Oscar-nominated actress' performance was brilliant, but the film itself was "terrible."

"I thought it was an incredible performance," Spencer said.

For Princess Diana's brother, digesting Kristen Stewart's 2021 movie Spencer was presumably about as difficult as eating a bowl of pearls.

During an interview with writer Tina Brown (below), Charles Spencer responded to one of the journalist's questions about fictional portrayals of his late sister, the Princess of Wales, who famously died in 1997 at age 36 amid a high-speed car crash.

Brown asked Spencer if "any fictional portrayal of Diana has come close to capturing what she was like in real life," as many have tried to bring the late icon's life to light on screens big and small.

"Yeah, actually I do," Spencer said, before clarifying that he doesn't "watch The Crown, so I can't talk about that," but that "the person who acted that part has received lots of awards," so he's confident that both Emma Corrin and Elizabeth Debicki's portrayals at different points in the princess' life were of high quality.

"But," Spencer continued, "I was on a plane, and I saw a movie called Spencer. I thought I'd better look at that."

The crowd chuckled at Spencer's response, referencing director Pablo Larrain's experimental 2021 film that scored Stewart her first Oscar nomination for Best Actress but also divided audiences for its highly stylized, surrealist dramatization of a Christmas celebration at the Royal Family's Sandringham estate. The film chronicles the princess' mental decline as she weighs ending her marriage to Prince Charles.

"And there was Kristen Stewart, who doesn't really look like Diana, but, my goodness, she caught her spirit," Spencer said. "I thought it was an incredible performance — the film is terrible. But I was really intrigued by how good she was at capturing Diana."

Brown agreed, telling Spencer that she was surprised he could even get through the movie in the first place.

Spencer received positive critical reception upon its 2021 release, though audiences were divided. Despite earning an 83 percent score based on 365 reviews on Rotten Tomatoes (which counts anything above a 6/10 or equivalent as a "positive" score), the film's audience rating on the site sits at 52 percent.

Kristen Stewart as Princess Diana in 'Spencer'Credit: Pablo Larrain/Neon/Courtesy Everett Collection

The performance deeply impacted Stewart, who said in a recent interview with The Telegraph that she felt "haunted" by the princess both before and after making the movie.

"I still am. I can't drive 'round this city, and Paris for that matter, without thinking about her," the Twilight actress said. "All the love that poured out of this woman… I can cry about her at any moment."

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Other actresses have brought Princess Diana's life to the screen in other projects over the years — namely Oscar nominee Naomi Watts, who adapted the late royal's story in the critically maligned 2013 biopic Diana.

Watch Spencer recount his feelings on Stewart's film in the video above.

Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly