Keira Knightley has given us some of the most memorable sex scenes of the past decade, from Anna Karenina’s passionate fling with Count Vronsky (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) to the Atonement library subpoena and her first cousin. , The Aftermath table hookup. She is the queen of searing historical drama, fleshing out literary and real life heroines of the past to give them hopes, aspirations, ambition and desires. But in a new interview, the actress says she’s pretty much done with all of that — at least, as long as those scenes continue to be male-directed.
“It’s the male gaze. If I did a story about this journey of motherhood and body acceptance, I feel sorry, but it should be with a filmmaker,” Knightley told filmmaker Lulu Wang and writer-producer Diane Solway on the podcast. Chanel Connects. “I don’t have an absolute ban, but I kind of do with the men.”
Knightley said she added a non-nudity clause to her contract after becoming a mother, in part because she no longer wanted to be gaped at by predominantly male crews while filming sex scenes designed to meet to their fantasies.
“I don’t want it to be those horrible sex scenes where you’re all greased up and everyone’s groaning. I’m not interested in doing that,” she said. comfortable now trying to represent the male gaze. Saying that, there are times when I’m like, ‘Yeah, I totally see where that sx would be really good in this movie and you just need someone to look sexy.’ So you can use someone else, because I’m too vain and the body had two kids now and I’d just rather not stand in front of a bunch of n-ked men.
This latest development seems like the next logical step for a performer who has increasingly expressed her discomfort with the way women’s bodies are portrayed on screen. In 2018, she explained her fondness for period films by pointing out that they offered her rare opportunities to play women who were not relegated to a supporting role in a man’s story, or subjected to sexual violence. .
“I don’t really make movies that are set in modern times because female characters almost always get raped,” she told Variety at the time.
But it seems she’s now taking that thinking even further and looking to focus her energy on stories by and for women who also challenge her own assumptions. In September, Knightley told Refinery29 that her latest film, Misbehavior, forced her to grapple with the inherent contradictions of feminist work in Hollywood. Directed by Phillipa Lowthorpe, the film chronicles a real protest organized by the burgeoning women’s liberation movement during the 1970 Miss World pageant in London. As activist Sally Alexander, Knightley played someone who takes a stand against the objectification of women – although she admitted that she herself had taken advantage of this system.
“Most of my money is made modeling and walking the red carpet,” she said. “So even if you think you’re on the right side, you’re actually not. The world is a nuanced and complicated place.
Plus, the teachings of Hollywood are hard to unlearn, especially for someone who started it so young. In that same interview, Knightley talked about how her introduction to hit studio movies meant having her breasts contoured and highlighted every morning as a 17-year-old starring in Pirates of the Caribbean.
“They literally painted them over,” she said. “I had to go to makeup, where they would do my face, and then I would go to a different place where they would do all the body painting. The woman who took care of my breasts every day was the body makeup artist for every major female movie star in the 90s. Back then, I was like Oh, it’s just Hollywood.
According to his resolution, Knightley’s next project is expected to be very different. She is due to begin filming very soon on Silent Night, a Christmas comedy written and directed by Camille Griffin, starring Matthew Goode and Annabel Wallis. If you remember correctly, Knightley’s most famous in the genre was Juliet, a woman who is relentlessly stalked by her husband’s best friend in Love, Actually directed by Richard Curtis. Everything comes full circle.
