All she needed was a talk with the movie's director Pablo Larraín.
"He called me on the phone," Stewart said during a conversation at the Toronto International Film Festival, according to IndieWire. "At first I hadn't read the script yet and he proposed this idea and said he was doing this sort of weird tone poem about Diana, and asked whether or not I would be interested in tackling the subject at all - before he sent the script."
"Kind of without thinking, very irresponsibly, I said 'Yes, absolutely,'" Stewart recalled. "I could have totally fucked it up."
But Larraín has a great track record in profiling famous women in a unique way. He oversaw Natalie Portman's transformation into Jackie Kennedy for the 2016 movie "Jackie." Centered on the former first lady in the days following the assassination of her husband, John F. Kennedy, the performance led to Portman earning a best actress Oscar nomination.
Spencer also revealed that she didn't feel much pressure playing the role that will certainly be analyzed by many all over the world.
"I knew there was no way to play this part perfectly and therefore it was easier," she said. "Or at least easier to not be so intimidated and so daunted."
"I could only be my version of that and kind of hope that if I learned everything about her, and absorbed her, and kind of meld, and be both me and her in some sort of weird way, it was going to be the best version," she added.
"I think that her strength and her power and her feral, unstoppable force of nature really, really comes out when she was with her kids," Stewart said. "She wasn't very good at protecting herself, but she was really good at protecting them."
Advertisement
"If you don't get that right, you don't get her right," she added.
NewsletterSIMPLY PUT - where we join the dots to inform and inspire you. Sign up for a weekly brief collating many news items into one untangled thought delivered straight to your mailbox.