Kristen Stewart to play Princess Diana in a movie from the director of Jackie

Could this be the role that will land Kristen Stewart an Academy Award nomination?

The Twilight star has been cast as Princess Diana in Spencer, a new film from Jackie director Pablo Larraín, Deadline reports. The movie takes place over three days around Christmas in the early 1990s, following Diana as she "decided her marriage to Prince Charles wasn't working, and that she needed to veer from a path that put her in line to one day be queen," Deadline writes.

Larraín explained to Deadline how the "heart of the movie" will be examining "when someone decides not to be the queen, and says, I'd rather go and be myself. ... How and why do you decide to do that?" As far as casting Stewart as the lead, Larraín praised her as "one of the great actors around today" and someone who "can be very mysterious and very fragile an ultimately very strong as well, which is what we need." The film, which was written by Steven Knight, won't deal with Diana's death in 1997, as Larraín said "we all know her fate, what happened to her, and we don't need to go there."

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Since the Twilight films, Stewart has won praise from critics for her performances in movies like Personal Shopper, and after Natalie Portman previously landed an Oscar nomination for her performance as Jackie Kennedy in Larraín's Jackie, Oscar voters may be ready to recognize Stewart for the first time should she nail it. The film is set to go into production next year.