Princess Diana: Meet the Actresses Who’ve Played ‘England’s Rose,’ from the Big Screen to Broadway

Elizabeth Debicki isn’t the first actress to give new life to the late Princess Diana, born Diana Spencer — see who else has captivated audiences over the decades by playing the People’s Princess

Elizabeth Debicki, Kristen Stewart and Naomi Watts. PHOTO: NETFLIX; PABLO LARRAIN/NEON/THA/SHUTTERSTOCK; ECOSSE/KOBAL/SHUTTERSTOCK

Over the years, several talented women have stepped into Princess Diana’s shoes to tell her story.

Diana’s likeness has been portrayed on screens and stages before and after her tragic death in 1997. Her love story and fallout with King Charles was dramatized by actresses like Catherine Oxenberg and Caroline Bliss in the ’80s. Decades later, big names like Naomi Watts and Kristen Stewart starred in big-screen biopics and dramas that explored Diana’s life in the spotlight.

Most recently, Elizabeth Debicki plays the beloved figure in seasons 5 and 6 of The Crown, a role she inherited from Emma Corrin a season earlier. As the hit series airs its final installment, see all of the stars who have taken on the role of Princess Diana.

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Elizabeth Debicki in The Crown (2022-2023)

Elizabeth Debicki in ‘The Crown’.DES WILLIE/NETFLIX

Debicki made her debut as the late princess on season 5 of The Crown, which followed the dissolution of Diana’s marriage to then-Prince Charles. In the sixth and final season of the series, Debicki — whose credits include roles in The Night Manager and Christopher Nolan’s Tenet — portrays Diana in the final years of her life, leading up to her tragic death in 1997.

Speaking to PEOPLE at The Crown‘s season 6 premiere, Debicki shared that she “learned a lot” playing the royal.

“I don’t think you come anywhere near sort of learning as much as I learned about this character and not feel that the only thing worth doing in life is putting love into the world,” Debicki said at the event in Los Angeles.

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Kristen Stewart in Spencer (2021)

Kristen Stewart as Princess Diana in Spencer (2021). SHOEBOX FILMS

Having played Joan Jett in The Runaways and Jean Seberg in Seberg, the actress is no stranger to stepping into the shoes of real-life icons.

Pablo Larraín’s biopic takes place over three days in December 1991 as Princess Diana spends Christmas at Queen Elizabeth’s Sandringham estate and realizes she needs to end her marriage to Prince Charles. U.K. culture professor Pauline Maclaran tells PEOPLE that the Twilight star’s turn is “very likely to be a favorable portrayal for a younger audience.”

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Emma Corrin in The Crown (2020)

Emma Corrin in The Crown. SPLASHNEWS.COM

Corrin channeled some of the Princess of Wales’s most iconic looks in season 4 of Netflix’s hit palace intrigue drama. According to Maclaran, “The Crown really favors Diana. It’s turning her into the heroine by focusing on her virtuous side.” (The role has likewise proven favorable for Corrin, whose interpretation garnered a Golden Globe and a Screen Actors Guild Award in 2021.)

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Jeanna de Waal in Diana: The Musical (2020)

Jeanna de Waal as Princess Diana. MATTHEW MURPHY & EVAN ZIMMERMAN/MURPHY MADE

The London-born actress began previews on Broadway in March 2020 before global lockdowns sent Broadway into an indefinite hiatus. But the show announced its return in August 2021, teasing that it would tell “The story you only thought you knew.”

Set in 1981, the musical follows de Waal’s Diana as she prepares to marry into the royal family, then explores the aftermath of that marriage, including Diana’s complicated relationship with the press and Prince Charles’s highly publicized affair with Camilla Parker-Bowles (later titled the Duchess of Cornwall through her marriage to the Prince of Wales).

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Naomi Watts in Diana (2013)

SPLASH

The Australian actress’s turn as the beloved royal was less than adored. In fact, Maclaran tells PEOPLE, “It was widely panned.”

Watts had put in the work — training with a dialogue coach for six weeks, watching interviews repeatedly and physically transforming with the help of wigs and prosthetics — and she even claimed Diana had visited her in a dream to give her permission, but “her portrayal was seen as fairly wooden,” says Maclaran.

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Lesley Harcourt in William & Catherine, A Royal Love Story (2011)

HALLMARK

Harcourt donned a wig to channel Diana in the opening scene of this 2011 Hallmark movie. From there… Princess Diana figured very little into the love story of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge — but royal watchers who tuned in hoping to see the Queen and Kate Middleton playing Wii Tennis were in luck!

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Genevieve O’Reilly in Diana: Last Days of a Princess (2007)

TLC

O’Reilly played the People’s Princess for this TLC documentary, which reenacted Diana’s interviews and the days leading up to her tragic death in a car crash in Paris in 1997.

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Amy Seccombe in Diana: A Tribute to the People’s Princess (1998)

REUTERS / ALAMY

Released just one year after Diana’s death, this Tribute followed the royal through her final months, delving into her romances with Dodi Al Fayed and Hasnat Khan, and highlighting her meetings with landmine victims along with other charitable endeavors.

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Julie Cox in Princess in Love (1996)

CBS/GETTY

Based on the biography by Anna Pasternak, the tell-all TV movie detailing Captain James Hewitt’s affair with Diana showed that “her story contained all the elements of fairy tale and tragedy,” says Bastin.

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Serena Scott Thomas in Diana: Her True Story (1993)

KOBAL/SHUTTERSTOCK

Based on Andrew Morton’s biography of the same name, which was covertly recorded when the princess was unhappy in her marriage and raising her young sons, this TV biopic chronicled the dissolution of Diana’s marriage to Prince Charles.

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Caroline Bliss in Charles & Diana: A Royal Love Story (1982)

MOVIESTORE/SHUTTERSTOCK

A year after 750 million people around the globe watched Diana’s wedding to Prince Charles, A Royal Love Story dramatized that momentous day. At the time, Diana was still viewed “as the fairy-tale princess, and the early, quite cheesy films reflect that,” says Maclaran.

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Catherine Oxenberg — Twice!

HRYSALIS-YELLEN PRODS/KOBAL/SHUTTERSTOCK; ALAMY

The soon-to-be Dynasty star — who is actually the second cousin once removed of Prince Charles through her mother, Princess Elizabeth of Yugoslavia — made her acting debut in 1982’s The Royal Romance and reprised the role of Diana 10 years later in Charles & Diana: Unhappily Ever After.

Though she’d scored an invite to Charles and Diana’s wedding in 1981, choosing to play her cousin-by-marriage did have its consequences. She told Closer in 2019, “The only thing that the film cost me was return visits to Buckingham Palace.”