Kristen Stewart landed her first Oscar nomination for portraying the late Diana, Princess of Wales in Spencer.
The nominations, announced on Tuesday morning, recognise the best performances in film over the past year. Stewart was critically lauded for her portrayal of Diana over the holiday period at Sandringham in 1992 when her marriage to Prince Charles has broken down, and she contemplates a future outside the British Royal Family.
In an interview with the Los Angeles Times last fall ahead of Spencer’s premiere, Stewart said of Diana: “Diana’s such a live wire. Any picture or interview I’ve ever seen of her, there’s an explosive, ground-shaking quality to her that I always feel like you never really know what’s going to happen. Even when she’s walking the red carpet, it just feels a little bit scary. That could be projection because we all know what happened. But she just has this feral cat feel. So I wanted to convey that. There’s no way to plan chaos. You just have to fall into it.”
Stewart was previously nominated for a Golden Globe award but failed to win (Nicole Kidman and Rachel Zegler won for their performances in the drama and comedy/musical categories, respectively) and was snubbed by both the Screen Actors Guild awards and the BAFTA awards, often considered precursors to Oscar nominations and wins.
Stewart is nominated against Jessica Chastain (The Eyes of Tammy Faye), Olivia Colman (The Lost Daughter), Penélope Cruz (Parallel Mothers) and Nicole Kidman (Being the Ricardos). She has yet to comment on her nomination.
Colman won the Academy Award for Best Actress in 2019, portraying Queen Anne in The Favourite. She would go on to portray Queen Elizabeth II in the third and fourth seasons of The Crown, winning more awards for the performance.
The 94th Academy Awards will be presented on Sunday, 27 March, in Hollywood, California.
