Kirsten Stewart spoke about the late Princess Diana at the press conference for Spencer, one of the hottest films at the Venice Film Fest and having its world premiere on the Lido on Friday.

“There are some people that are endowed with undeniable energy,” she said of the royal, whom she portrays in Pablo Larraine’s biopic, set over a long Christmas weekend during which Diana decides to end her doomed marriage to Prince Charles. “But as well as being so normal and disarming, she also felt so isolated and so lonely. She needed everyone else to feel accompanied and bolstered by this beautiful light, and all she wanted was to have it back.”

Stewart added: “She wore her heart on her sleeve — to me that was the coolest thing she did.”

Asked whether, as someone who has also experienced media attention, she felt any similarities between herself and Diana, Stewart was hesitant to make any direct comparisons. “She was the most famous woman in the world,” she said. “I have tasted a high level of that, but nowhere near that monumental, symbolic representation of an entire group of people.”

However, she said that she empathized with the idea of not having “control over a situation” when it comes to the impressions you leave with people or the opinions they form of you. “When you know when the story on the street is just wrong and there’s nowhere to correct it.” She added: “But that was what life was like for her, and at some point you’re going to bare your teeth, because we’re animals and it’s natural. I think everyone feels like they knew here, which is what’s beautiful about her — you think you’re friends with her — but ironically she was the most unknown person.”

For Larrain, who described Stewart as his “miracle,” one of the reasons for making Spencer was wanting to “make a movie that his mother would like,” he said, adding that his mother had tried to dress like Diana and get her haircut. “I wanted to make a movie that could somehow relate to what I think someone like my mother sees in Diana.”