This story is so random, snobby and petty, I think it might be an early contender for one of my favorite WTF posts of the year. As we know, a film about Princess Diana is being made. It’s called Spencer, and it stars Kristen Stewart as Diana. The film is supposedly set entirely over one weekend in Sandringham in 1991, and it’s about Diana coming to the crossroads in her marriage. There are already “royal experts” pointing out that even on a superficial level, this film is probably going to be historically inaccurate. It’s not like Diana would have randomly spent a weekend at Sandringham unless it was a holiday or some important family event, especially at that point of her life, when her marriage had pretty much deteriorated and she and Charles were leading separate lives. Well, it turns out that Spencer is being filmed in Germany… in a property/castle owned by one of the Queen’s German relatives. The scandal!
The Queen has remained entirely above the fray sparked by the most recent series of The Crown — dismissed by the Prince of Wales’s old friend, Sir Nicholas Soames, as ‘lies and meanness, clearly intended to be a vile misrepresentation of the Royal Family’. But even HM’s legendary sang-froid may be tested by the forthcoming feature film Spencer, starring Kristen Stewart as Princess Diana, which focuses on the collapse of her marriage to Prince Charles, For I can disclose that, astonishingly, filming is now under way at a property owned by one of the Queen’s relations — who is also related to the Duke of Edinburgh.
Schloss Kronberg, whose interior is being used as a stand-in for Sandringham, the Queen’s Norfolk residence, is owned by Prince Donatus of Hesse, 54, a third cousin of the Queen. He was among a handful of her German relations who welcomed her to Frankfurt in 2015. ‘We had a good table and I know her of course as a relative,’ Donatus said after lunch. ‘I see her once in a while.’
Accompanying the Queen on the visit was Prince Philip, one of whose sisters, Princess Sophie, married Prince Christoph of Hesse. He was Donatus’s great uncle, an SS officer who died in a plane crash in 1943 — while Philip was in the Royal Navy fighting the Nazis.
‘Normally I meet them in England at Windsor,’ Donatus reflected after the royal couple’s Frankfurt visit. ‘It’s lovely to see them here.’
Buckingham Palace declines to comment on the Prince’s decision to permit filming of Spencer at Schloss Kronberg — one of several huge properties in the family’s possession. Royal insiders say a member of the Royal Family facilitating such an entertainment drama will not go down well with Her Majesty. But his compatriots stress that, for all the Hesse dynasty’s apparent wealth, Donatus may be feeling the pinch.
‘Schloss Kronberg is now used as a hotel,’ one of them tells me, ‘and he had to close down his other five-star Grand Hotel in Frankfurt recently. Covid is hitting the industry hard.’
Another agrees, telling me: ‘My sympathy is with him. He’s charming — a very nice man. The family has a lot of property, including a vast place, Panker, but perhaps not so much cash. They will be paid well for permitting filming.’
First the Crown got to film in some of the posh, historic, heritage properties in the UK, and now a gauche fictionalized drama about Princess Diana is being filmed at German property owned by the Queen’s distant relative. How shocking! I hope the Queen is roundly criticized for allowing a distant relative to profit from Diana’s historically inaccurate memory! Oh wait, I’m being told none of that will happen. All of this will be swept under the rug, but not because it involves Diana. It will be swept under the rug because no one likes to remind the British public that the Queen and Prince Philip have all of those German relatives. Anyway, I feel sort of bad for the German guy – with the tourism industry in tatters, he probably does need the cash. I looked up Schloss Kronberg and if anything, it looks a lot bigger and nicer than Sandringham too.
PS… A new photo of Kristen Stewart-as-Diana. She looks nothing like Diana and they got the sapphire ring wrong! ZOINKS.
That sapphire.
Kristen Stewart in Pablo Larraín’s SPENCER.
Coming this fall. pic.twitter.com/NdYm3EMhOc— NEON (@neonrated) March 25, 2021
Photos courtesy of WENN, ‘Spencer.’
I didn’t realize Kristen was such a chameleon! I would never have recognized her in the ring photo. The hair people are great is what I can say.
Right? She doesn’t look like a ringer for Lady Di right here, but she also looks nothing like Kristin Stewart! That’s uncanny.
How can they get the ring so wrong? I mean, you can literally buy replicas online.
And this girl has NONE of Diana’s “it”.
I think watching her try to be Diana is going to be hilarious. is she even going to attempt the voice?
I imagine that The Queen is feeling like Humpty Dumpty at present: she knows in her innermost reptilian heart that all her horses and little grey men will never put the Monarchy together again. The Guardian led with another expose, this one relating to Old Brenda’s refusal to allow private residences to be searched for materials related to historical crimes. I hope Kristen nails her performance and makes the monarchy writhe with helpless fury and chagrin.
The hair seems on point but the ring! That is probably one of the easiest details to get right! How is it wrong?
Diana’s engagement ring is so iconic it’s nearly impossible to get it wrong.
I hope is the light.
The ring is crazy! That’s such an odd detail to get wrong; that ring is so iconic.
I think she looks way more like Camilla than Diana in this picture.
I’m sorry but she looks more like Camilla than anyone.
Actually, I’m also getting major “young Princess Michael” vibes from her in this pic. The face is similar in some ways.
The first pic had a great resemblance, this not so much.
And yes, the ring is completely wrong, which I guess doesn’t matter much but in releases for the photo they keep emphasizing it and the band, the color, the size, everything is inaccurate – it’s one of the most famous pieces of jewelry ever and tied to Diana irrevocably, it can’t be that hard to get it right? Lol!
She doesn’t look like Diana but she also doesn’t look like Kristen so it helps with forgetting you are watching Kristen. She won a Cesar once, right? She might actually pull it off.
She was basically playing a version of herself in Sils Maria though. Kristen Stewart has never been the type of actress to disappear into her roles. Her tics and mannerisms are always there. I don’t see how her strengths as an actress lend well to playing such an popular, well known, iconic figure. If the director wasn’t so well-respected, I would see train wreck all over this project. Maybe Larrain can manage to get a chameleon performance out of her, but it would be a first.
The French bestowed a great honour on Kristen when they awarded her the Cesar. She’s the only American actress ever to win it.
Why do all of these stories/reporters act as if the Queen’s word and thoughts are all that matter in the world?
@Tulipworthy: RIGHT?!! I feel like it’s practically all we hear about. They vastly overestimate how much the entire rest of the world outside the UK thinks or cares about how this woman “feels” on a daily basis.
So wait, there are royals in other countries who earn their own livings..?
Interesting!
This is sarcasm but you get my point – more stories like this please!
LOL!
The monarchy in Germany is abolished, but that doesen’t stop them from using the old titles.
The premise of the film sounds way more interesting than I was expecting. I hope Kristen Stewart can pull it off
The queen’s other cousin was also arrested, charged, jailed for ten months with sexual assault on one of their historic properties. The Windsors are a mess.
Next year the royal family brand will take another hit and it won’t be because of the Sussexes. Spencer and season 5 of the crown it’s going to be a lot.
The actress who plays Diana in The Crown is a much better representation! Kristen tried, but didn’t quite nail it IMO.
She looks like a younger Camilla and I don’t mean that in a bad way, it just highlights how UNdiana she looks
Did anyone see her in the film where she played Jean Seberg?
Prince Charles will be played by an actor named Jack Farthing, who played the villain on ‘Poldark.’ I feel like he and Josh O’Connor are on a hit list in the real Prince Charles’ brain.
Jack Farthing is a perfect choice, I have more confidence in his ability to play Prince Charles than Kirsten Stewart because in Poldark he already plays an aristocratic asshole.
I watched Seberg recently and enjoyed it. I thought she did a good job, but I still was aware of watching Kristin Stewart pretending to be Jean Seberg. Not sure how she’ll pull of Diana.
Based on the few photos, the wigs and costuming aren’t that good. Why is it so hard for have people to recreate Diana’s hair? Even the Crown didn’t do great with her hair, but costumes were good. Stewart doesn’t really look like her and her lack of height is glaring, but don’t think this will be a typical biopic.
I think The Crown intentionally did not try to replicate Diana’s hairstyles to the tee. Same with the costumes. They wanted her to look like the iconic Diana, but slightly re-interpreted.
As for Stewart, I have only seen her in two things. I can’t see her disappearing into the role or getting the accent right. And she’s so short to be playing the role. Hope I’ll be pleasantly surprised.
Why oh why is the usually morose Stewart smiling coquettishly to portray Diana at such a low point of her life?
Even the unsmiling pic seems more dull than tormented.
I agree about tourism industry hitting historical sites hard, I’m sure German castles are feeling it as much as anywhere else.
Lol that ring is soooo wrong wut.
Also just dropping this new guardian article here because it’s about the queen:
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/mar/25/revealed-police-barred-from-searching-queens-estates-for-looted-artefacts?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other
From the article: “The letter from Whittingdale’s private secretary makes clear that the exemption applies only to the Queen and her private estates. Police are still allowed to search properties within the crown estate, for example, a huge swathe of land that historically belonged to English monarchs and now belongs to the nation.”
Is Frogmore Cottage part of the crown estate? What are the odds that the Men in Gray pack it with stolen artifacts, then invite the police in to search, then blame it all on Meghan’s light fingers? (I’m only half kidding)
I’ve stayed at Schloss Kronberg and it’s gorgeous. It was the home of queen Victoria’s widowed daughter, Victoria, the Empress Friedrich of Germany—the mother of Kaiser Wilhelm II. She moved there in the early 1890s and lived there the remainder of her life. It was originally named Schloss Friedrichshof after her husband. It was left to her daughter, Margaret, who had married into the Hesse family. ‘Vicky’ and ‘Fritz’ had an amazing love story and his death in 1888, after a reign of just 99 days, from cancer was a true loss. German, and world, history may have been very different.
I think it is such a mistake to cast a celebrity as Diana. I watched Naomi Watts in Diana, and to me it was embarrassing. The crown was great because I tried to see Diana and sometimes I was like, the voice is so similar, it wasnt, you know, Naomi Campbell/Kristen Stewart trying to do personify Diana. Feels costumy and unreal like a joke impersonator. Diana had a combination of manners, a face, a body, a voice and eyes that I don’t think anybody will EVER be able to grasp and copy correctly. Anyway, we’ll see… but if they can’t get the ring right, I mean… ?!?!?! Come on.
I’m stuck at “Kristen Stewart as Diana.” She’s a good enough actress, but she does not have the range. This is gonna be bad — I hope it’s hilariously bad rather than just embarrassing.