The details of Princess Diana’s life in the limelight have long spawned captivating stories and have led to various on-screen portrayals of the late princess.
From Emma Corrin to Kristen Stewart, here are the many actors who have played the role.
– Emma Corrin in The Crown
In Netflix’s hit historical drama The Crown, 26-year-old Colin played the role of Lady Diana Spencer, who first appeared in the life of Prince Charles, heir to the British throne and husband of Princess Diana.
British actor Colin, who was little known when he was offered the role in 2019, learned more about the late princess before embarking on the role, including meeting with the late princess’s former personal assistant, Patrick Jeffson. They reportedly conducted extensive research.
They starred alongside Josh O’Connor, who played the young Prince Charles, and Olivia Colman and Tobias Menzies, who played the Queen and Prince Philip.
Colin won a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Television Series Drama for her portrayal of a princess.
– Kristen Stewart of Spencer
American actress Stewart, 32, best known for her role as Bella Swan in the Twilight series, has challenged herself to play Diana, Princess of Wales, in the 2021 film Spencer.
In contrast to many other films and TV series featuring princesses, Spencer is set in just three days and follows the princesses at the Queen’s Sandringham estate on Christmas Day 1991.
In the film, Stewart depicts a period when Diana and Charles’ relationship was strained, with a particular focus on Diana’s mental health at the time.
To perfect her English accent, Stewart worked with dialect coach William Conacher to prepare for the role of Diana alongside Colin and Naomi Watts.
Stewart was nominated for an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress.
– Naomi Watts in Diana
Watts, 53, played a royal figure in the 2013 film Diana, which focused on the last two years of the princess’s life.
Beginning with her divorce from Charles in 1996, the film takes a closer look at the romantic relationships the princess developed after her marriage to the prince ended.
The film covers Diana’s visit to Angola as part of a campaign against landmines shortly before her death in 1997.
Her relationship with Egyptian film producer Dodi Fayed is also featured, and although the film ends with Diana and Fayd killed in a notorious car accident in Paris’ Pont de l’Alma Tunnel, the crash itself. There is no on-screen depiction.
– Elizabeth Debicki of The Crown
With The Crown’s fifth series approaching, Elizabeth Debicki is the latest actress to take on the role of Diana.
The Australian actress, who has starred in Tenet and The Great Gatsby, will follow in Colin’s footsteps to portray the princess in her last decade of life.
Debicki, 31, is slated to star as Prince Charles alongside Dominic West, and while viewers have yet to see an on-screen portrayal of the two, the images released by Netflix give fans of the show what to expect. It gave me a glimpse of what to expect.
In one shot, the couple can be seen standing on a yacht while Debicki wears a colorful floral dress and Diana’s signature cropped blonde haircut.West, 52 emulates a prince with a tweed-brown suit and aviator sunglasses.
The scene was reportedly filmed in Palma, Mallorca aboard the Cristina O, a 325-foot luxury yacht previously owned by Aristotle Onassis and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.
– Julie Cox from The Princess in Love
Diana appeared on screen even before her death, most notably in the 1996 film The Princess in Love, played by British actress Julie Cox.
The film focused on the eventful later years of the marriage of Prince Charles and Princess Charles, and the affair she was reported to have had with Army officer James Hewitt.
Based on Anna Pasternak’s book of the same name, of which Hewitt was a primary source, the film follows the then-purported five-year relationship between Diana and Hewitt, 64.
Diana later admitted to the incident in a now infamous 1995 interview with BBC Panorama journalist Martin Bashir.
Cox, 48, co-starred with British actor and producer Christopher Villiers, who played Hewitt.
