Keira Knightley, known for her roles in family films such as “Bend It Like Beckham” and “Pirates of the Caribbean,” has revealed that she turned to alcohol to help her through the sexually explicit scenes in her film “A Dangerous Method.”

In the film, directed by David Cronenburg, Knightley plays Sabina Spielrein, a se* starved psychiatric patient who enjoys masochism.

To perform the role, Knightley said she drank vodka to calm her nerves before shooting the scenes and then celebrated with champagne afterward.

“We had one or two shots maximum. It was a vodka shot to calm our nerves and away you go really. Then we had champagne. We drank quite a lot of champagne, actually. The vodka and the champagne was a good combination,” she told Culture magazine.

In the erotic scenes of the film, Knightley is seen being spanked with a leather belt and lying topless in bed.

The film follows the relationship between psychoanalysts Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud, with Viggo Mortensen playing Freud and Michael Fassbender playing Jung.

The film is based on John Kerr’s 1993 book “A Most Dangerous Method: The Story of Jung, Freud and Sabina Spielrein.”

Knightley has been trying to move away from the soft roles that made her famous in films such as “Love, Actually” and “Bend It Like Beckham” and tackle more taxing parts.

Earlier this year, she starred in the West End adaptation of Lilian Hellman’s “The Children’s Hour,” which follows two women accused of having a lesbian affair in the 1930s.

However, Knightley has not given up on period pieces, saying that she loves everything about them and that they are a privilege to be a part of.

She is set to star in a new Tom Stoppard adaptation of “Anna Karenina,” which will be released next year.

Knightley has been dating James Righton, the singer and keyboard player for indie rockers Klaxons, since 2011. Recently, she split from Rupert Friend, her boyfriend of six years.