Lauren Pineda
Keira Knightley, the female co-star of romantic dramas Pride and Prejudice and Atonement, has decided that she has had enough with on-screen nude scenes. Especially if the director is a male. She, without hesitation, told the “CHANEL Connects” podcast, “I don’t have an absolute ban, but I kind of do with men.”
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The 35-year-old mother of two spoke out about shooting sex scenes, calling attention to the difference between the necessity of the scene to the plot and the need to create a sex appeal. The two-time Oscar-nominated actress told filmmaker Lulu Wang and writer Diane Solway, “It’s partly vanity and also it’s the male gaze. I feel very uncomfortable now trying to portray the male gaze. Saying that, there are times where I go, ‘Yeah, I completely see where this sex would be really good in this film,’ and you basically just need somebody to look hot.”
Keira Knightley Won’t Shoot Nude Scenes with Male Directors
With that being said, the Pirates of the Caribbean actress also wanted to clarify that she’s not shutting out the idea of shooting sex scenes completely. She explained why she would feel more comfortable doing so with a female filmmaker. She stated, “If I was making a story that was about that journey of motherhood and body acceptance, I feel like, I’m sorry, but that would have to be with a female filmmaker. I don’t want it to be those horrible sex scenes where you’re all greased up and everybody is grunting. I’m not interested in doing that.”
But she had some final words for directors who were still looking to cast her in a role featuring nudity, saying, “So therefore, you can use somebody else, because I’m too vain and the body has had two children now, and I’d just rather not stand in front of a group of men naked.”
I think Knightley is being incredibly humble in saying that vanity plays a part in her recent decisions about what roles she would like to play in the future. Knightley has two daughters, 5-year-old Edie and 1-year-old Delilah, with her husband James Righton. It’s fantastic to see her be a role model in bravely discussing why understanding the importance of sex scenes in a movie plot is a completely reasonable argument to consider if whether someone wants to play a certain role.
