Now, with three Pirates films under her belt, Knightley has shifted gears to play the older sister of a girl whose romantic interest sets his sights on the elder sibling, creating a contentious love triangle in director Joe Wright's adaptation of Atonement.

Keira Knightley on working with director Joe Wright:

"I love working with him, and partly because he’s a mate and we have a laugh, and that’s always nice, you know. If you can, I suppose, go to your office, in a sense, and have a lovely day, then I think that’s all anybody wants when they work, really. As a director, I think he’s phenomenal, I really do. I think he’s a great, great talent. He’s obsessed by every single aspect of filmmaking. He’s a complete perfectionist and his perfectionism and his obsessiveness is totally catching, and that makes the entire process unbelievably exciting, creatively. I mean I’m sure if you weren’t interested in acting or filmmaking then you wouldn’t find it exciting at all. But, you know, for me, it’s an amazing process. And I think he’s a huge believer in everybody being happy and comfortable in the work environment, and he does that through discussion and he does that - he’s very cleverly realized that actors, when they’re working, are like children, and they need a f**k of a lot of attention. And when they get that, they actually really give back, you know, because you sort of feel like somebody’s really watching you. I think with him, he wants you to work hard. He demands that you work hard. He demands that you have a question to every one of his answers. He demands that you absolutely know what decision you’re making and for what reason. And the fact that he makes sure that you’re on the ball all the time, that you’re working hard all the time, is really rewarding. And I think, certainly, for all the actors that he’s worked with, he’s one of the favorites for absolutely everybody."

Knightley on James McAvoy's comment that the director was nervous shooting the sex scene:

"Yeah, he was. Well, I think that might have been quite difficult for him because we are mates and he’s suddenly kind of going, ‘Oh God, how do we do this?’ I told him to, I think, shut the f**k up and tell us what he wanted us to do. So actually what you don’t hear in that scene is Joe’s voice talking us through exactly what to do next, which actually made it much easier. You know, we’d already... I think despite the last-minute nerves, it’s an incredibly important scene in the film. You know, it’s the moment in the film that the whole of the first third is sort of leading up to between Robbie and Cecilia. And the audience has to believe that from that moment these two people wait for each other for four or five years. That one moment, that’s it. And for Cecilia, she walks away from her entire family. So that moment had to be incredibly erotic and had to be incredibly passionate. And we did talk about it a lot. And he had storyboarded the moment when my foot came out of the shoe, and I bit my lip and all of that. That was all storyboarded before we did it. So we knew the kind of pattern - the position on the bookcase that we had to get into. The bookcase had been built so that we could actually do it, if you like. They’re always funny scenes to film. I mean they’re always completely ridiculous. But eventually he just told us what to do and that made it much easier."

On whether she has a routine or process to ease the tension:

"I suppose having a drink if you were really nervous would probably help. No, not with this one. Again, it was - it wasn’t - I think a lot of times in film sex scenes can be rather unnecessary. This was a very necessary one and, again, like I said, we had to deal with it. It’s a really important scene in the film. I think actually, partly because we were all so aware that it was very key, it was actually much easier to do, as opposed to kind of knowing that you were doing one of those sex scenes that’s like, ‘Okay, I’ve gotta do this.’"

Knightley on what she does when not working on films:

"Lots of things, probably really boring things. I go to see a lot of films. I actually stay in and watch a lot of films. I recently watched the whole of... A Long Way Round... The incredible bike ride. It’s wonderful. It’s really wonderful. My brother bought it on dvd. It’s six hours of it. And I thought, ‘Well, all right, I’m just gonna watch one. I don’t like motorbikes, but I’ll just watch one.’ I got completely obsessed and found that I’d watched all six hours and felt disgusting."

Keira Knightley on the social classes that keep the characters apart and whether it still exists in Britain:

"I don’t know. That is the honest answer, I don’t know. I went to a comprehensive school, so I’m not of the aristocracy. So I can’t answer whether it is a big deal in the aristocracy whether you, you know - so no, not for me, is, I suppose, the only answer I could give."

On whether she can imagine waiting so long for someone in real life:

"No, I couldn’t imagine waiting so long. Could anyone imagine waiting so long? Oh actually, well no, I suppose I can imagine - all right, calm down. I suppose I can imagine because I must have imagined, otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to play a thing. I’m an actress, that’s my job isn’t it? So that was a stupid answer... So yes, I can imagine."

Keira Knightley Interview Page 2