Kristen Stewart, 30, may be earning raves for starring as Princess Diana in the acclaimed film Spencer, but she has “Lady Marmalade” on her mind. Kristen revealed to Moulin Rouge star Nicole Kidman, 54, that she knows every lyric to the film’s classic love song “Elephant Love Medley,” in a new interview for Variety‘s Actors on Actors presented by Amazon Studios. Stewart described being “so obsessed” with the film she first saw in theaters with her mom, telling Nicole: “That was such a beautiful movie.”
In the interview, Kristen and Nicole came together to discuss their overlapping careers and their current starring roles as Princess Di and, for Nicole, as Lucille Ball in Being the Ricardos. In a twist of fate, Nicole and Kristen were supposed to work together on the 2002 David Fincher film Panic Room, when Kristen was just ten years old. Kristen described a vivid memory of spending time on set with Nicole, saying: “I felt like I was buds with you. It was two or three weeks, but I was always like, ‘She’s one of my friends.’”
Nicole in turn recalled David telling her about young Kristen, and saying: “Oh, my God, we have discovered the most incredible actress.” Ultimately, a last-minute injury forced Nicole to bow out of the film, Jodie Foster stepping in as the lead — but Nicole and Kristen’s chemistry together is clear even out of character.
The duo also discussed the struggle to nail down Lucille Ball’s and Princess Diana’s accents respectively; Nicole admitted she even took up smoking to capture the redheaded comedienne’s husky voice. Kristen said that though she didn’t struggle with a British accent, she found it hard to truly become Diana until she related to her like a peer, sharing: “She became a kind of friend; you do the best impressions of your best friends.” Kristen has been earning accolades left and right for the performance.
Although a recent SAG Awards snub left many fans furious, HollywoodLife learned from an EXCLUSIVE source that Kristen saw losing out on a nomination as a “blessing in disguise,” and an opportunity to drive more viewers to the film. The source EXCLUSIVELY shared with HollywoodLife: “[Kristen] wants nothing more than people to see the film. Awards are nice but the recognition that goes the furthest is people seeing a project that hundreds of people worked on.”