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Keira Knightley ‘won’t do nude scenes’ in films with male directors any more

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Keira Knightley ‘won’t do nude scenes’ in films with male directors any more

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Keira Knightley is being open about her restrictions when it comes to appearing in nudity-heavy scenes.

The 35-year-old Atonement and Pride and Prejudice actor stated she does not have a “total ban” on performing in naked scenes, but she will no longer consider being naked in front of a male director.

Knightley has had a long cinematic career, with highlights including Bend It Like Beckham, Pirates of the Caribbean, and many others. That means the mother of two, has more power than ever before in her profession, and it wasn’t difficult for her to pinpoint where she wanted to make some adjustments.

According to a recent CHANEL Connects podcast chat with Lulu Wang and Diane Solway, Knightley has written off a specific kind of sex scenes completely, adding a “no nudity” provision to her film contracts in 2015 and elaborates on the logic behind that.

Under the right circumstances, the actress is neither offended by the nude figure or put off by the presence of these sequences. But, for her own comfort and creative interests, Knightley will not strip down for anything that channels the “male gaze,” whether it’s the look through which the story is told or the gaze of a bunch of men on set.

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    She is against the idea of sexually objectifying women, — and the fact that she now has children also played a role in her decision.

    “It’s partly vanity,” Knightley explained. “Also, it’s the male gaze… I don’t have an absolute ban, but I kind of do with men. I don’t want it to be that kind of — oh, horrible sex scenes where you’re all greased up and everybody is grunting. I’m not interested in doing that.”

    “There’s times where I go, ‘Yeah, I completely see where this sex scene would be really good in this film, and you basically just need somebody to look hot, and so, therefore, you can use somebody else,'” she continued. “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.”

    Nudity on set has been a topic of discussion in recent years, particularly since the MeToo movement gained traction in 2017 in response to claims of sexual misconduct against film producer Harvey Weinstein.

    Many studios now engage “intimacy coordinators” to monitor sex scenes and ensure performers are comfortable during sex or nude scenes.

    The British actress has stated that she would be interested in filming nude sequences regarding female life experiences and body acceptance, but only under the supervision of a female director.

    “If it was about motherhood, literally about how extraordinary that body is, about how suddenly you’re looking at this body that you’ve got to know … and it’s changed in ways that are unfathomable to you before you become a mother — then, yeah, I’d totally be up for exploring that with a woman who would understand that,” she said.

    In an interview with USA TODAY in 2018, the actress discussed parenting and raising her then-3-year-old daughter Edie.

    “I’m being very careful about fairy tales with my kid because I don’t like the message that a lot of them have,” she explained, adding that she has forbidden Edie from viewing Disney classics like “Cinderella” and “The Little Mermaid.”

    “She’s watched them all now,” the actress later said, adding that she hasn’t hesitated to use the situation as a teaching opportunity.

    “When we watched ‘Sleeping Beauty,’ she said, ‘It’s not OK that man kissed her without her permission!’ I can’t tell you how pleased I was,” she said. “If I don’t do anything else, I’ve managed to drum that in!”

    In describing her early ascent to prominence, Knightley says that she was bombarded with a masculine perspective and patriarchal demands throughout some of her most vulnerable years.

    “Between the age of 17 and 22, I had this incredible run of success,” she said. “But when you do that in the public, it’s a pretty brutal place to do that particularly if you’re a woman. So my growing up on screen and that realization of the kind of misogyny that existed in a totally worldwide way, both within the industry and within the media industry’s portrayal of women…it is brutal for young women.”

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