The Royal Couple 

Maria Antonia Josepha Joanna of Habsburg-Lorraine (November 2, 1755 – October 16, 1793) was the youngest daughter of the Austrian Empress Marie Therese of Hapsburg and Francis I of Lorraine. In 1770 she left her home in Austria to marry the Dauphin and future King of France Louis XVI. Before she was known as Marie Antoinette, her friends and family called her by her baptismal name, Antoine (she was named after St. Anthony). Later she was called by the french form of this name; Antoinette.  Early in her marriage to Louis XVI, Antoinette had little comfort form her husband, so she formed close relationships with several women at court, the most famous of these being Yolande de Polignac and Thérèse de Lamballe; together these women threw themselves into a life of pleasure and careless extravagance, behavior that many of the French people believed scandalous. Like Kirsten Dunst, Marie Antoinette had fair hair, but unlike Dunst, Antoinette had the typical Hapsburg pouty mouth, round cheeks, and a long nose with wide blue eyes and curved eyebrows.  Dunst brings a post-modern freshness to this queen and she plays her with sweet sincerity and sensual warmth.

 Louis-Auguste, duc de Berry, King Louis XVI (August 23 1754– January 21 1793) was King of France and Navarre from 1774 until 1791, and then King of the French from 1791 to 1792. On 16 May 1770, he married Marie Antoinette, but he was not happy; he had little in common with Antoinette. In his hunting journal, he wrote only one word about the wedding: "nothing." For seven years the couple remained childless due to the fact that Louis XVI suffered from a sexual dysfunction (rumored to be phimosis) and was the cause of much anxiety. Eventually, perhaps after he finally grew to trust an Austrian wife (France and Austria had long been enemies), they had four children and Antoinette finally felt that she had his love. Louis XVI was an awkward man who would've rather been a commoner than a king. Because he was so skinny as a child, he was told to eat, and so later he gained a pot belly. More at home in the outdoors hunting or tinkering with the newest technological inventions, he had trouble putting on a regal aire while on the throne. Brilliantly cast, Jason Schwartzman is perfect for this role, bringing humanity to this often underplayed king.

Marie Antoinette's friends:  

Yolande Martine Gabrielle de Polastron, duchesse de Polignac (8 September 1749–9 December 1793) was talented, graceful, and beautiful, and quickly became the undisputed leader of the Marie Antoinette's exclusive circle. Her friendship with the queen greatly benefited her family, outraging many French aristocrats. She was one of the few friends that Louis XVI liked; Gabrielle knew how to be clever, charismatic, and influential. Played by the stunning Rose Byrne, the Duchesse de Polignac comes back to life.

Marie Thérèse Louise de Savoie-Carignan, princesse de Lamballe (September 8, 1749 – September 3, 1792) born in Turin, was married in 1767 to Louis Alexandre Stanislaus de Bourbon, prince of Lamballe, son of the duke of Penthièvre, a grandson of King Louis XIV's natural son, Louis Alexandre, comte de Toulouse. Her husband died within a year, leaving her, as she expressed it, "a bride when an infant, a widow before I was a mother or had a prospect of becoming one." Naturally an outsider, she gained the friendship of a fellow outsider at court, the young Marie Antoinette, who later appointed her, despite opposition from Louis XVI, superintendent of the royal household. Being half-German, she could speak Antoinette's native language and was not a woman who liked to play at political intrigues.  However, unlike the Duchesse de Polignac, Thérèse Lamballe wasn't as witty, preferring solitude for reading, and was often described as being very emotionally sensitive.  Newcomer Mary Nighy plays a demure, quiet, child-like Lamballe.

Count Hans Axel von Fersen (September 4, 1755 - June 20, 1810) was a Swedish statesman who befriended Marie Antoinette when he became a French court favorite at the age of sixteen. "Le beau" Fersen was much admired at the court of Versailles, and would have spent most of his life there if he hadn't of been called to duty by his sovereign Gustav III of Sweden to Italy and then back to Sweden in 1784. Much rumored to have had an intense love affair, no one knows if Fersen and Antoinette really were an item, with the only evidence being a fairly platonic correspondence between them. Yet in 1785 Marie Antoinette gave birth to Louis-Charles, giving rise to more gossip that the baby might have been Fersen's and not the king's. In any case, Fersen was famous as a lover and had affairs with many women. Said to look like the hero in a romance novel, Axel von Fersen couldn't be played better by none other than Jamie Dornan who is a former Calvin Klein model.