Keira Knightley covers the new issue of Variety to promote Colette, a film adaptation of the popular book, which will premiere at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. Keira has been lower-key ever since she gave birth to her daughter, although to be fair… Keira has been low-key for years. She met the right guy, got married, had a baby and seems to breeze through her work on stage and screen with ease. She has it all figured out! So I was slightly surprised that Keira was so no-nonsense about how she answered a lot of Variety’s questions. She used to insist on privacy at every level, but she was downright chatty and opinionated with Variety. Some highlights:
Why she wanted to play Colette: “It’s wonderful to play inspiring women and to get their stories and their voices out there. Within her writing, Colette was questioning the idea of gender and the idea of what was naturally feminine as opposed to society’s take on being feminine. The 1890s in France, the belle époque, is interesting to look back on because there was a lot of sexual freedom. Colette had female lovers and had what I suppose we would call a transgender lover. She felt that it was her right to experience pleasure and to give pleasure. That’s still a revolutionary idea for women.”
Colette in the #MeToo era and modern-day scripts: “I don’t think it’s a surprise that it managed to get funding in the last few years when it had never managed to get funding before. Women’s stories are suddenly viewed as important…With the rise of Netflix and Amazon we’re seeing some strong female characters and female stories on streaming services. I don’t know about films as much. I don’t really do films set in the modern day because the female characters nearly always get raped. I always find something distasteful in the way women are portrayed, whereas I’ve always found very inspiring characters offered to me in historical pieces. There’s been some improvement. I’m suddenly being sent scripts with present-day women who aren’t raped in the first five pages and aren’t simply there to be the loving girlfriend or wife.
Whether she’s ever been assaulted or abused at work: “I’m fortunate that I’ve never been sexually abused professionally or harassed on a film set, but in my personal life, when I’ve been in bars, I can count four times when I’ve been what I’d say was assaulted in a minor way. I think everyone has battled their fair share of monsters. It’s not just actresses. It’s teachers; it’s lawyers. I’m not talking about rape, but I’m talking about the people who had been grabbed in pubs or their breasts had been fondled by somebody they didn’t know or they’d had someone shove a hand up their skirt. For too long, you really did go, ‘Oh, this is just normal.’ It’s terrifying that was our response. It must have been awful for all of those brave women who have come forward and spoken publicly about their experiences. There’s been a lot of pain and a lot of suffering.”
The films she made with the Weinstein Company: “My experience with Harvey Weinstein was always very professional. He was very good on the films we made. I was aware of his reputation of being a bully. He was famous for phoning people in the middle of the night and screaming at them. He didn’t do that to me, and he certainly never asked me for massages or anything like that. I wasn’t aware of any allegations or rape or sexual assault against him. For the first time people are sharing their stories. People have been absolutely terrified to talk about it and were scared of retribution, so I don’t think everybody knew the extent of what was going on.
Back to work after giving birth to her daughter: “It’s been busy. I took a year off when I was pregnant and after I had my kid. It was interesting, because when you have a child it’s amazing and fulfilling, but you feel like your identity can in some way be subsumed by being a mother. I had a real feeling of needing to feel like I am still me, so I attached myself to an awful lot of projects, and I got to the last one, which was actually “Colette,” and realized I was absolutely knackered, so I’ve taken the last six months off… I was the daughter of a working mother, and I know how important it was to me and my sense of self to see my mom working. I want my daughter to see that I’m doing something that I love. I want her to know that whatever field she chooses, she can have a kid and she can still pursue a career.
It’s so refreshing to hear a celebrity woman talking about how important it is to her that her daughter SEES her working, that she sees that Keira works for a living, and works because she loves it. So many celebrity moms feed into the narrative that stay-at-home mothering is the best way to parent when really, few moms even have that choice. And in some cases, like Keira, women want to go back to work. As for what she says about Weinstein… I believe her. I believe she didn’t know. I also think she’s disturbingly right about how many fictional rapes there are in movies and television nowadays. Ugh.
Photos courtesy of WENN, cover courtesy of Variety.
I hate that cover! It looks like she’s waiting to donate blood and is really scared about it :/
It is a rather awkward set up. Like, is the idea supposed to be that she is reclining to watch a movie…on the ceiling? And the green lighting – not exactly flattering.
Yeah it’s really really bad.
‘For too long, you really did go, ‘Oh, this is just normal.’ It’s terrifying that was our response.’
It bugs me when people say things like this. It was never normal. It was never ok. It was always wrong. At some point the conversation needs to address the fact that people were teaching their daughters that it was. I’m not trying to victim blame but you just cannot dictate or predict the behaviour of others. You can only be responsible for your own actions.
I’ve been harassed many times throughout my 33 years and never was I quiet about it. Even when I was truly afraid, I never just let it happen and go about my business like it was normal. I spoke up, I called the guy out.
My comments in no way reflect how I feel about rape.
It’s true though. There’s a shift in what’s considered normal. I had my ass grabbed repeatedly in my twenties while out, and if I was with girls we’d yell at the guy, if I wasn’t surrounded by friends I’d be pissed, but dismiss it as drunk guy behavior that was considered normal to all of us. If I was fortunate enough to be with a guy I’d point the offender out and get his ass kicked or thrown out. I never once thought of it as assault. I thought it was just drunk boys being boys.
I agree with you, and good for you that you are so strong. I wasn’t brought up to know how to deal with that kind of harrassment. I just did what everyone else did in those sorts of situations, sighed, threw my eyes up to heaven and walked away thinking, what a dick or whatever. I suppose it was also a case of not wanting to cause a scene which can also be stressful.
Both sexes need to be taught about sexual harrasment in school or at home from childhood: for girls so that we can defend ourselves and boys also need to learn how to deal appropriately with women. And overall, so that this shit stops happening.
if you don’t want to victim blame – then please stop doing it. sometimes women stay quiet b/c they are scared for their lives or their careers or their families. sometimes they stay quiet b/c they are afraid to escalate the situation. it isn’t women’s personal responsibility to not be assaulted or to act a certain way when they are. gtfo.
Thanks Lizzie – I was wondering how to respond tactfully & thank god you’ve got there first.
It’s not easy when you’re a child, when it’s close relatives, when they threaten to kill you, when it would put your job on the line, when it’s a “friend”, when they’re a doctor …..
& in theory I’m feisty as hell but I was never equipped to deal with any of the above & it’s taken/taking me decades to cope with the scars.
It’s “normal” in that you expect it. This is a thing that happens and you WILL have to deal with it sooner or later as a woman. Heartbreakingly, for a lot of us it’s sooner, before we are even women. It’s not an outrageous thing that you only see on TV or hear about happening to other people. Nope, it’s life. It’s a shitty part of life but, until recently, it’s been a largely accepted one. As in, you deal with each incident in the moment and move on with your life.
Things are changing though. No longer is it “yeah, that guy was an asshole”. It’s “why do I, and seemingly every other woman, have to deal with assholes so frequently?” We are waking up to the idea that these things can be stopped from even happening at all. That there might be a day where you hear about a woman being sexually assaulted or harassed, and it’s NOT a thing that has happened to you. It’s an outrageous thing that you only hear about but don’t experience. That’s what is different.
I love her.
I second that. She’s lovely.
Third-ed. She’s one of my favourites. So refreshing and down-to-earth.
Why in God’s name is the interviewer asking her if she’s ever been sexually assaulted?!
That being said, she seems very levelheaded.
It makes it sound like people won’t believe what a woman says on the topic unless it has actually affecting them directly, unlike men, who apparently can be asked for their opinion on the issues when they are statistically far less likely to have experienced harassment/assault in the same ways.
I agree with her, too. Too many rapes in movies and tv and in addition to being disturbing and difficult to watch, I think it’s lazy writing.
yup, it’s either rape or the woman has lost a child. Sometimes the storylines are done well, and in a sympathetic manner…but most times it’s a cheap ploy to upset the reader/viewer.
It’s in a lot of fictional writing as well. Rape has become an easy way to create drama and conflict within a plot without anyone having to think too hard. It’s prevelance nowadays isn’t even what disturbs me the most, but the feeling writers are using it simply as a dramatic tool with no further thought or purpose.
I stopped reading Outlander for this reason. Too many rape attempts used as plot devices. It made me feel sick.
This is one big reason I don’t enjoy a lot of modern TV and movies. Need a strong female character who has overcome adversity? Rape. Need to explain why a woman has issues? Rape. Need your female character to go through a harrowing experience that nearly destroys her? Rape. Need to devalue her in some way? Rape. In fact, need a “bad thing” to happen to your female character when any generic bad experience will do? Rape! Or if not rape, some kind of sexual assault or harassment or general reducing of her to some sexual commodity by a male character, preferably a male character in power. Because nothing else will do, apparently. Any other bad thing just isn’t bad enough, I guess.
Not only is it horribly painful to watch, or even hear about if it happened in the past or off screen, it’s lazy to boot. Women are whole people but are rarely written as such. Because that’s hard.
This, exactly! It’s such lazy and dehumanizing writing.
And half the time it seems like the rape and associated trauma isn’t even for *her* character development, but for her male love interest’s. She gets to deal with everything offscreen while he goes and gets justice/revenge/whatever. I’m so beyond tired of the “rape-as-plot-device” and “rape-as-character-development” tropes.
The Mary Sue has a great comic on this:
https://www.themarysue.com/lady-junk-1/
I agree. Not entertaining to me. I will just quit watching whatever the show or movie is unless there is a really really good reason for it in the storyline.
@BETHE I agree 100%!!! I hate watching it and it’s in like every movie, tv show. Get new material. I always wondered if it was perverted male producers pushing that story line? Maybe it’s not uncomfortable for them because they aren’t a woman? And yes I am aware men get raped but how many times has that ever been the norm in tv and movies?
I agree. Now that I’m older and have a daughter, I can’t stomach it. SO many shows have this as a turning point for female characters. GOT is just rife with it. As are many other HBO shows. Yuck. Hopefully writers will get a clue and Time’s Up will involve stopping the constant depictions of rape on screen. Quit glorifying sexual violence or using it as a cheap plot twist. There are so many other ways to create conflict. Ugh.
@HEYTHERE
Yes, it’s men. You can see it from the way the rape scenes tend to be shot, showing the woman’s face, body, lingerie. It’s all from a man’s point of view. Whereas in reality what you see is a gross guy breathing on your face. That’s far less sexy though (again – for men) and wouldn’t pull in a big audience…
That why I loved Good Girls Revolt, but of course the guy running Amazon video cancelled it after one season. And then he got fired for harassment. Ugh.
I agree with her, and it’s the reason I don’t watch a lot of popular shows. Violence against women seems to be a fetish of a lot of writers and producers. Is there no way to have levity or suspense without it?
She hasn’t managed to escape the rape on screen even in a costume biopic – her character in The Duchess was forced to have sex by her husband, played by Ralph Fiennes.
I’ve always loved her. I hope it’s not becoming a trend to ask actresses if they were sexually abused at work or else where. People shouldn’t be put on the spot to answer that.
It’s becoming the new buzzword (see previous chapter: Feminism), which unfortunately just serves to make people bored and/or annoyed with the constant presence of the topic, which leads to backlash. I feel like this may well could be orchestrated to do just that to preserve the status quo (i.e. patriarchy) and not have more support for societal changes.
I love Keira but I think she’s forgetting that horrific and triggering rape scene they had her do in The Duchess, when she played Georgiana Spencer Cavendish (I believe?), the Duchess of Devonshire, the Duke of Devonshire’s miserable wife? Let’s not pretend period pieces are not without their share of rape and sexual violence, please.
Georgiana is a fascinating character. Her life was tragic and she was a compelling woman born and married off to that awful man. Keira did well to pick the role of such a woman, but yeah. She was raped and she was coerced and she was kept prisoner in a loveless marriage that ended up being one of the few open examples of triads in history (his husband took on a mistress and they lived, the three of them, together for decades – and the kicker is the mistress had been G’s close friend and only confidante, thereby humiliating her even further). Mistress and Duke went on to marry after G’s death (though G gave them their blessing, which goes to show).
Worst casting ever. Colette was known for her curvy and sexy figure, was this French bon vivant, her relationship with women was super complex, she once said that feminists should be whipped in a harem to understand life better…I hate these white-washed biopics. Colette is a brilliant writer and fascinating woman but she will be seen as some proto #metoo pioneer when she was something completely different. And Keira does not look like her even a bit. Also…Colette had a very common exotic provincial accent. If Keira does her usual RP it’s even more of a travesty.
Well maybe Colette couldn’t find funding before but wouldn’t it have more to do with the fact that she was a french writer, very famous, studied in school here, but I suspect barely known from english speaking audiences?
The late Marie Trintignant played her almost 15 years ago and left a strong impression on me. I’m sure Knightley is good but I’ll pass this one.
She did a couple of good films set in modern days. Begin again and Last Night come to mind.
Glad to hear an actress talking about this!
I stopped watching Game of Thrones because I got so sick of seeing rape in every second episode.
It’s one thing to want to show what it does to a person’s psyche but 85% of the time I really don’t get the feeling that’s really the motivation…
It never, ever is. They use rape the way bad horror films use cheap jump scares. Not surprising— All male writers. It drives me nuts when people call that show feminist when it is anything but. Having three female murderous psychopaths and constant rape does not a feminist show make.
Yes, that’s exactly why I stopped watching GOT! It bewilders me that it’s supposedly one of the best tv shows ever, I mean, do people just ignore these kind of scenes as ‘normal’ for the show? Smh.
I admire her work so much and vastly agree with her. I’m so fed up with dead-women and raped-women shows.
I’m re-upping this fantastic article about how the rape machine works on tv, for instance:
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/television/how-has-rape-become-such-a-common-trope-of-television-drama/article31931181/
‘On one show I worked on, after various male writers kept suggesting we rape the female lead to “raise the stakes,” I suggested we rape the male lead instead. They went nuts – calling me “sick” and referring to me as “Man Rape Vanstone” for the rest of the week. (I laughed. But still …) As one anonymous female TV drama writer told Variety’s Maureen Ryan: “Every single year we get dudes pitching ‘rape the women’ stories and every season I have to stomp my foot in the writers’ room and say no, which I probably shouldn’t do, for the sake of my career, but dammit, NO. If rape were so illuminating, such a great story, then you know what? They’d be pitching to rape the men. But that never happens and never will happen, so it’s this blatantly internalized misogyny that drives me nuts.”’
Thanks for posting!
Just a note. She’s not saying she never played a rape victim or will never play it again, she’s saying she doesnt like those storylines.
Read, people.
I loved this interview. Very honest and straight forward. Kudos Keira
I loved her interview too!
Probably the male writers get a great kick out of writing such scenes – writing out their fantasies.
She’s right, Rape is a lazy writer using it as an excuse to get from point A to point B and the male protoganists reason for revenge,confrontation etc. The poor victim in the story never gets a formal resolution or healing storyline,they just appear at the end to say thank you for saving me & sleep/make out with the main character. Refuse to watch shows where’s there’s a rape scene, it makes me squirm , sad, angry & just sick of the violence against women. I couldn’t watch Sons of Anarchy after a rape plot line…it’s just too much now a days
I am fortunate to have never been sexually asulted, and watching rape scenes on TV make me upset, angry, squirmy and sick to my stomach. My face turns hot because I hate it so much. I’m screaming in my head WHY SERSIOULY IS THIS IN EVERY SHOW?!?!?! I can’t imagine what it is like to have suffered that trauma and try to watch tv or a movie?!?!?! How does it not trigger every single memory?! It upsets me for people who have been though this horrible reality. It’s safe to say this is probably every woman’s biggest, very realistic fear in life?! I know it’s mine. That, along with anything happening to one of my children.
Quit writing about rape in movies and TV!!!!!!
But period dramas are full of rape, see Vikings or almost any stuff about Tudors England. Game of Thrones is also full of rape and is freaking popular.
SPOILER ALERT: For fans of the show Slasher.
The new show on Netflix Slasher has a brutal male to male rape scene in season 2. I admit I was shocked to see it laid out so graphically.
It made me think about how little we see male rape, but also how much we glamorize rape. Not only is the scene terrifying and unsexy, but the episode after the rape is gritty – the victim is bleeding and weeping in the shower. I realized we rarely see this in rape tropes today.
Although I strongly agree that we put too much emphasis on rape as a story line, I think the bigger sin is how “sexy” we make it, from the male gaze to the revealing clothes to the soft music to the lack of follow-up (physical and mental) for the victim. In other words, if you use rape as as a story line to highlight a characters backstory you damn well better be willing to accurately portray the crime and stop making it a voyeuristic cinematic peep show.
Oz depicted very graphic,raw male rape scenes more than 15 years ago. It was very disturbing (collective rapes, mentally deficient victims) but never glamorized, no soundtrack, clearly showing the aftermath.
Mysterious skin with Joseph Gordon-Levitt had rape scenes, upsetting but not gratuitous.
You’re right the male creators seem to be more careful to not glamorize it when the victim is male.
I love her and wish we saw her more onscreen!
I cant fault her because her experiences are her own. She probably has been sent a lot of scripts where the women are treated horribly, but I also find it somewhat naive to have the viewpoint that historical films are more respectful. Because there still can be rape there. The women can still be treated badly in those films as well. And while there were some bad ass ladies in the past, for the most part women werent valued much more than being a wife/mother. So its not like like historical films are more feminist than modern films. And thats coming from someone who does like period pieces.