How Kristen Stewart became SPENCER, a French Connection to Princess Diana

by Quendrith Johnson, Los Angeles Correspondent

It’s been six short years since actor Kristen Stewart became the first American in 30 years to be nominated, then remarkably win, a César or “French Oscar” for CLOUDS OF SILS MARIA. With that opener, this comes as an updated version of KStew’s comeback, which should now be complete with SPENCER, a movie about a pivotal Christmas with the Royal Family, as she portrays the late Princess Diana (formerly Lady Diana Spencer) for director Pablo Larrain.

Et Tu César? Non, non, non.

Frankly this historic 2015 first-ever win for an American, technically in a Supporting Role, proved to be insufficient to quash the alleged scandal that knocked Kristen Stewart off the America’s Sweetheart Vampire pedestal. 

We will get to that tempest in a teacup later, for now, the French Connection. Although the former Twilight franchise-fronter became beloved of the notoriously insular French Academy, known since 1974 as l’Académie des Arts et Techniques du Cinéma, ironically Stewart fell in love with France first. When not fulfilling screen obligations Kristen Stewart, who turned 31 year old on April 9, 2021, is also a francophile, poet, fiction writer. 

In France, literary-leaning production company MK2 is described as “the leading independent movie company and the third movie company in Paris with ten movie theaters, sixty movie screens and five million filmgoers per year,” produced Kristen Stewart’s starrer “On the Road” (Sur La Route) in 2012. The French venture funded director Walter Salles’ $32.9 million adaptation of Jack Kerouac’s meandering 1950’s cult classic novel.

From France to Italy

There’s an interesting segue here to“On The Road,” and to the legacy of James Gandolfini (HBO’s Sopranos fronter), whose son Michael Gandolfini is now a star in gangster origin-story series “The Many Saints of Newark.” Kristen Stewart was James Gandolfini’s co-star in “Welcome to the Rileys (2010). For one of his rare interviews, Gandolfini directed his comments solely at her Jack Kerouac performance, when he spoke to Variety, for an “Actor on Actors” special at the time.

Gandolfini opened with a Kerouac quote, “The only people for me are the mad ones.”

“Kristen Stewart is one of the mad ones… determined to make people mad. To show them she is more than Bella in ‘Twilight.’ To show them she does burn, and smolder, and wants more out of her career and life. And smolder she does.”

“As soon as she steps into the movie ‘On the Road,’ you can’t take your eyes off her. As Marylou, whenever she fixes her gaze, you see someone who will go as far as she can, and do it as mad as she can, to live and feel alive. And it is sexy and scary and reckless and smart. She can play all of these things… She is fearless… But she is smart enough to handle it. Stick around my friends, and there will be much, much more to come. Thinking about it, I am smiling already.”

Pop culture icon James Gandolfini put his name to these words on November 26, 2012, six months later, on June 19, 2013 he collapsed in Italy and was pronounced dead en route to the hospital. Devastated, Kristen admitted to being derailed in her work momentarily, quoted as being “gutted” by it. When the Road actor finished her Beat Period in 2012, at 22, she had already spent a decade in the business. 

Discovered by Hollywood Royalty, Jodie Foster?

While young KStew had no speaking parts in  “The Thirteenth Year” (1999) and “The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas” (2000), she made an impact as a tween opposite on-screen mom Patricia Clarkson in “The Safety of Objects” (2001). But it was Hollywood Royalty Jodie Foster who threw her full support behind Stewart as nearly co-lead in David Fincher’s The Panic Room (2002).

Even Stewart was bowled over at the time. “Everyone always says, ‘Kristen got ‘Panic Room’ because she looks like Jodie Foster.’ But it was actually Nicole Kidman who was supposed to play my mother.”

Child Star no more, Enter Stephenie Meyer’s Books

Flash-forward to pre-production 2007. Stewart, set to star in a little movie directed by Catherine Hardwicke, gets to literally hand-pick her co-star. She decides on little-known Harry Potter alum Robert Pattinson. Hardwicke is blown away by the chemistry, and early on, tells Pattison, then 21, that Kristen is still underage, 17 going on 18.

When the “Twilight” franchise, based on the best-selling books by Stephenie Meyer hit Europe, these volumes were wildly popular in France, not only worldwide, with an extensive French Wiki page. The three-movie blockbuster release has its own French poster with “L’Éternité N’Est Que Le Commencement.”

Winter is Coming, Scandal Weather

Snow White & The Huntsman, released June 2012, was tipped to be the next big franchise marquee headline for Stewart. Until tabloid USWeekly on July 17, 2012, takes a shot from sniper position of “loved-up” KStew in a tangle with married Hunstman director Rupert Sanders. 

British, Sanders’ headlines scream the so-called ‘breaking (hearts) news’ through the UK, as supermodel wife Liberty Ross is a home country favorite. 

Meanwhile in France, where even Prime Ministers may have ‘a wife and mistress,’ as the saying goes, there was nothing but support for the young star. And by August 15, 2012, Jodie Foster will pen a rare personal essay in defense of Stewart for The Daily Beast, possibly because that American outlet was founded by Tina Brown, of Vanity Fair fame. Someone Jodie knowns pretty well, in other words, and trusts to run this kind of personal content.

Foster opens the “essay” with her own experience in Show Business, and veer into Stewart’s situation with: “the truth is, like some curious radioactive mutant, I have invented my own gothic survival tools. I have fashioned rules to control the glaring eyes” from child actor to adult.

“I spent five months with Kristen Stewart on the set of Panic Room, mostly holed up in a space the size of a Manhattan closet.”

“She turned 11 during our shoot… I was pregnant at the time, and found myself daydreaming of the child I might soon have. Would she be like Kristen?All that beautiful talent and fearlessness… Cut to today, a beautiful young woman strides down the sidewalk alone… Darting around huge men with black cameras thrusting at her mouth and chest.”

Hold that thought for a moment, who does that sound like? Yes, a young Lady Diana Spencer lately plucked off the Royal greeting line to date the jug-eared eldest son and heir to the throne of the might HRH Queen Elizabeth II. All of KStew’s career paths lead to Princess Diana, just wait.

Kristen’s Australian-born mother Jules Mann-Stewart also hopped into the fray after Jodie Foster. An artist and animals rights advocate, Mann-Stewart ferociously defends Kristen during brief the “Snow White & Director” affair via the website SuicideGirls. 

“I didn’t raise them to be children, I raised them to be adults. That a concept that might be lost on a lot of people. I also tried to make them understand that it’s OK to make mistakes, so don’t be afraid to have a go at doing something different. And in that vein of ‘I’m interested in this, let’s try it, let’s see what happens’ my kids have always been the first ones on the line ready to have a go at something different. And it’s OK to fail, because that’s how you learn, when you fail.” 

After 25 years below-the-line as Script Supervisor, among other titles, Mann-Stewart divorced her industry camera-man husband that year, 2012, during this fracas. Jules first try as director was the movie K-11, released March 15, 2013.

Meanwhile, Kristen Stewart took a small voice role in K-11, but mostly took off on her own, from New Orleans, another French connection, and as a spokesmodel for designer Nicolas Ghesquière and fashion brand Balenciaga. She ended up in France with Ghesquière, admitting to Marie Claire magazine that “I was blown away – fashion became less superficial in my eyes. He had stuck out as an artist. The gems stick out. He was a designer I wanted to be around. He was so creative…If I have to walk red carpets, if I have to be in fashion, then I want to be with him.”

In this same March 14 issue, Kristen published an original poem entitled “My Heart Is A Wiffle Ball/Freedom Pole.”

Gratuitous SPENCER moment, remember when Princess Diana danced ballet on stage for Prince Charles? This was Princess Di’s personal expression moment, ‘poetry in motion’ shall we say. However, this made the heir apparent livid according to The Crown series (Netflix). But it does tie the two women together, the urge to intermingle art and life, and persona, to be ‘authentic.’

Toward the last lines of the poem, after she name-checks trendy Marfa,Texas where the art installations are, Kristen reveals something of herself in the prophetic lines:

“And this pining erosion is getting dust in/ My eyes/ And I’m drunk on your morsels/ And so I look down the line/ Your every twitch hand drum salute/ Salutes mine…” 

The poem ends with an ellipsis.

Meanwhile Back in France

When Kristen Stewart attended the ‘Clouds Of Sils Maria’ premiere during the 67th Annual Cannes Film Festival on May 23, 2014, in Cannes, France, she had by then been a regular and beloved presence at Fashion Week in Paris. In the movie, KStew plays not only Juliette Binoche’s young lover slash assistant, but is bonded off-screen with Binoche. They are fast friends, and Binoche is one of France’s most loved actresses, also one of the few to have had huge success in the US, notably with “The English Patient.”  

By Jan. 15, France’s Marion Cotillard is the only shock-nomination from America, The Academy taps her shoulder for “Two Days, One Night.” But the French have a shock of their own coming on Jan. 29, when Kristen Stewart is nominated by the French Academy for Best Supporting Actress. 

Her win on Feb. 20, 2015 is still a shock to some in both countries, and it should have washed the slate clean. This type of creative validation is so rare, no other American actor (male or female) has achieved it. 

So even the Huntsman producers may now regret not tapping Kristen Stewart for the sequel, slated for April 22, 2016, that re-teamed THOR’s Chris Hemsworth and Charlize Theron.

A visual thinker and artist, Kristen Stewart who turned 25 that April, 2016, claimed total ignorance of Social Media. She said she did not “even understand” Twitter. 

The Los Angeles-born native explained to USA Today, “I have a private Instagram so I can keep in touch with my friends because I’m always away. That’s not social media. We have a shared photo stream.” 

Most actors want to be directors, but that year in May, this born-in-the-Valley California Girl told Rolling Stone magazine that she was merely going to debut as a music video director for demon-brand Buffalo David Britton’s “Blank Check Series.” For band Sage + the Saints’ – the project “Take Me To the South” – was just to hang out and work with her musician friend, Sage Galesi. 

“I’ve been saying I want to direct movies since I was 10 years old,” the former Twilight-fronter said. “And then I started making movies and working with such incredible people that I realized what I was up against. So it was like, no way, now I’m gonna get more attention than I ever should just because of who I am.”   

Meanwhile, another French connection, this sponsor is “from humble beginnings, the Buffalo David Bitton brand has always been a family affair. Founded in Montreal more than 20 years ago, the Buffalo brand is a leader in the denim industry.” With all these French connections, no wonder Kristen Stewart won over so many César voters. 

At the César Awards ceremony, Stewart un-crumpled her “little paper” acceptance speech as cast-member Juliette Binoche coached her from the audience through a brief French-language apologia opener before resorting to English. Expect Stewart to become fluent, as she just announced future projects in France for her new Gallic fan-base.

Sadly, the ultimate French Connection with Princess Diana in SPENCER is the world-famous Royal icon’s untimely death under a bridge, at the so-named “13th Pillar” of The Pond De L’Alma.

Cut to Summer 2020, Kristen Stewart signs on to a Steven Knight-written film to be directed by Pablo Larrain. Knight has written UK series “Peaky Blinders” but also movies LOCKE, where Tom Hardy fights against his own inner Tom Hardy in a moving vehicle, and EASTERN PROMISES, where Viggo Mortensen almost loses his career with fun frontal nudity and a beating in a Russian bathhouse. And now surreal worlds collide, or intertwine with Kristen Stewart as the innocent unprotected Princess Diana in British CBE-titled Knight’s screen treatment of the blonde humanitarian’s iconic life. 

SPENCER as a “fable from a true tragedy” shows the grit and steely side of Princess Diana, who, as UK’s The Guardian pointed out, “grinds her car to a halt, tosses her perfect hair in frustration. ‘Where the fuck am I?’ asks Diana, Princess of Wales.” How very like the true Kristen Stewart, who lamented “fuck that,” when she could no longer share weed on her front steps with friends after she became America’s (Vampire) Sweetheart.

Jack Farthing plays Prince Charles, the dynamic Shape of Water star Sally Hawkins rounds out the sophisticated cast, that include Harry Potter character actor Timothy Spall, and Sean Harris.

In the end, the hope is that the paths of these iconic women will diverge with KStew to remain among the living for the rest of her long and brilliant career.

The official plot summary is as follows: 

“The marriage of Princess Diana and Prince Charles has long since grown cold. Though rumours of affairs and a divorce abound, peace is ordained for the Christmas festivities at the Queen’s Sandringham Estate. There’s eating and drinking, shooting and hunting. Diana knows the game. But this year, things will be a whole lot different. SPENCER is an imagining of what might have happened during those few fateful days.”

Here goes: Kristen Stewart as Princess Diana 

SPENCER opens Nov. 5, 2021 for general audiences, and has enjoyed a remarkable run at film festivals. Oscar buzz is in the air for 31-year-old Kristen Stewart, who is five years younger than when Princess Diana saw her last day on Earth. Directed by Pablo Larraín, and written by Steven Knight, the film stars Kristen Stewart, Jack Farthing, Sally Hawkins, Timothy Spall, Sean Harris.

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