- Don't expect members of the royal family to be fans of Kristen Stewart's upcoming Princess Diana biopic, Spencer.
- In a new interview, longtime royal reporter and author Robert Jobson predicted that the royals "won't like" the movie, but said they should "have expected it."
- Jobson, who says he got to know Diana during his time covering her, did praise Stewart's resemblance to the late royal, though. "Having been someone who has met Diana and knew her fairly well, I thought it was uncanny, really," he said.
There's already a lot of buzz about Kristen Stewart's upcoming Princess Diana biopic Spencer, but don't count on the royal family being among the movie's fans. The movie is set in 1991 and will focus on Diana as she comes to the difficult decision to leave Prince Charles.
In a new interview with Us Weekly, Robert Jobson, longtime royal reporter and author of the upcoming book Prince Philip’s Century: The Extraordinary Life of the Duke of Edinburgh, predicted that the royal family "won’t like" the movie. "But they would have expected it," he added. "It is the truth."
Jobson speaks from a place of authority, at least about Princess Diana. He's covered the royal family for years and says he was a young reporter when he covered Diana, but "knew her as a person."
And, apparently, those years of royal coverage and insight have left Jobson confident that "it’s inevitable" that "the royals won’t like [the biopic] at all." That said, Jobson did praise Stewart's resemblance to the late royal (as did, you know, pretty much everyone when the first look photo was released in January).
"I think the most important thing is how well the actress can interpret the role. We’ll have to wait and see on that," Jobson explained. "As for the photographs of her, I thought she looked remarkably like the photograph of [Diana]. Having been someone who has met Diana and knew her fairly well, I thought it was uncanny, really. But we’ll just have to see. I think what’s more important is the authenticity of the portrayal, and we’ll have to see how that develops because my understanding is it’s going to be a good script and it’s going to be a good premise, but it might not necessarily have actually happened in the way they’re saying."
During a November appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Stewart discussed the film and admitted to feeling "protective" of Diana.
"I didn’t grow up with her maybe in the same way, I was really young when she passed away. I was really young, [I] didn’t know what was going on. It’s hard not to feel protective of her. She was so young," she explained. "My movie takes place over three days, and it’s this really poetic internal imagining of what that might have felt like rather than giving new information. We kind of don’t have a mark to hit, we just also love her."
