‘Diana’ Director Oliver Hirschbiegel on the...casting of Naomi Watts

[Excerpt from an interview with The Film Stage]

Another thing that I’m sure you’ve been asked before is how you landed on your lead actress, Naomi Watts. But I’m very curious about the women that didn’t end up being cast. Did you go in with a ratio of how close you can get them to look like Diana versus how good of an actress she is?

Well, my first instinct was that I don’t want it to be a look-alike contest. I was even willing to go as far as having an actress that has dark eyes but be able to pull it off. The first name I ever wrote down was Naomi because I knew she would be the perfect choice. But of course you look at other actresses as well. Especially when I found out Naomi wasn’t available. As I suppose you’ve heard, I was talking to Jessica Chastain at the time. Who doesn’t look like Diana at all. But that didn’t go very far because she decided not to do this one nor the one with Tom Cruise [Oblivion] because she went to do the film with Kathryn Bigelow [Zero Dark Thirty].

So, at the same time that I got that news, and I was already thinking about others, Naomi got back to me and said that her project had fallen apart and that she could do my film. But she wasn’t sure. So I went to meet her and talk about it. Seeing her, I just knew she was perfect. But she doesn’t really look like Diana, either. She has the ability… she’s a chameleon. She becomes the character. She studies all the mannerisms. She’s like an athlete. She trains for these things. But what really makes it work is she takes it from inside. If you look at Downfall, Bruno [Ganz] doesn’t really look like Hitler. While we were doing it, he became Hitler. And she does the same thing, I think. She creates the same energy.

[read full interview]