Does Keira Knightley have a thing for going back in time? After three Pirates of the Caribbean movies and a dramatic turn in the Oscar nominated Atonement, Keira Knightley now steps back in time again to play controversial 18th Century aristocrat Duchess of Devonshire who found herself caught up in the cult of her own celebrity and a love triangle on the brink of scandal.

Earlier this month, Keira Knightley sat down with journalists at the Toronto Film Festival for the official press conference of The Duchess where she talked about why she does so many period pieces, the vulnerability of her character, and whether she looked to the late Princess Diana for inspiration.

Did you know anything about The Duchess before you read the script?

KEIRA KNIGHTLEY: I’d never heard of her before, no. So the script came through my door with three very large huge white ostrich feathers attached with a gold ribbon, and I thought, ‘Oh I don’t care what it is, that’s fantastic.’ And then I read it. I thought that she was fabulous. I thought that she was a fascinating character. The idea of this woman who’s politically so influential, and this sort of huge fashion icon, and such a sort of force of nature and yet privately is somebody who is so intensely vulnerable and incredibly lonely. And I thought the combination of those two things were sort of fascinating.

Were you worried at all that you could pull it off?

KNIGHTLEY: Oh yeah. I think there’s always that worry. I think you have to face failure and particularly if you’re an actress or an actor sometimes things aren’t going to go the way you hoped they will. But that’s part of what’s so exciting about the job. And I don’t really want to do things that I don’t find challenging. So yes, there’s always a huge fear that it’s going to be awful and I’m going to be crap and all the rest of it. You might as well go for it anyway.

Are there any personal reasons why you chose to do this movie?

KNIGHTLEY: I certainly don’t look for autobiographical work, so I wasn’t looking to draw any parallels with myself whatsoever. I thought, yes it was interesting. I thought that celebrity culture was a modern phenomenon. It was fascinating to find out that it was around three hundred years ago. I sort of thought it was kind of the least interesting aspect of the story in a funny kind of way. I thought the way that she used it, the manipulation of image and everything, I thought that that was very interesting, what it was saying kind of about mental state, that as the marriage started collapsing she needed more and more attention from complete strangers was an interesting, starting to sound like a psychological aspect to the character - but no I wasn’t trying to draw any parallels with myself.

Can you talk about the relationship of your character and the male characters in the film?

KNIGHTLEY: Yeah, I thought it was very interesting dynamics between the characters, definitely. The idea of living with a husband that you absolutely don’t understand, it was almost like two magnets repelling each other, that there was at no point a comfort between two people. It was really interesting with Ralph to kind of explore that. The betrayal of your best friend and then having to sort of live with this women, and go from a very intense friendship into hatred and back to a kind of mutual kind of respect for one another, I thought that that was an interesting journey as far as a friendship between two women go. I mean yes, it’s a horrendous situation that she finds herself in but what I sort of found quite inspiring was the fact that she survives. She doesn’t survive without scars. She does actually get through it. I thought that was an extraordinary thing.

So she’s not a victim?

KNIGHTLEY: I didn’t like to think of her as a victim. I don’t think victims are particularly attractive as a character trait. But what happens to her is horrendous. So I think what both Ralph and I were very conscious of is not making it into a victim villain storyline. And yes she’s horrendously oppressed and all the rest of it. But I think actually, fundamentally she’s a survivor.

The opening speech about freedom seems to belie what happens in the rest of the film. How was it to play that?

KNIGHTLEY: I’d never actually thought of that. You’re completely right. It is all about freedom in moderation. You’re completely right. No, it is. I think it’s always - it’s a wonderful kind of engine to propel a character through a story line when you have somebody who’s constantly trying to break out of boxes and constantly being pushed back into them, you know. And I think that was very much sort of the motion, if you like, of this character, and a lot of the characters throughout the way through. Well done, I hadn’t thought of that.

The scene near the end where her husband shows her the most physical and emotional vulnerability, can you talk about that?

KNIGHTLEY: I think it’s the first moment of any kind of understanding between them, really. It goes to show how wonderful Ralph is, I think, because on the page, and this isn’t to do down the script in anyway, but it could have very easily been played as somebody who was very simply evil and bad and all the rest of it. It is her perspective, absolutely, but I think the fact that he managed to make him strangely sympathetic, you can’t forget about what he’s done, but you do kind of sympathize. And I think at that moment you do realize that it’s two people that just don’t understand each other, at all, at all. And all of a sudden there’s a moment where she sees him probably for the first time as a human being as opposed to a kind of failure of what she wanted him to be.

Do you ever want to do a film set in modern times?

KNIGHTLEY: What? Just because people keep asking me about period films? I think you’d be cutting your nose off to spite your face if you turned down a fantastic script and a fantastic character simply because it was set two hundred years ago. I mean, apart from, I think, period films now means anything from ten years ago to the beginning of time. No, I do love period films personally. I love the fact that you can escape into a completely different reality. I think for me what I love about film is that it’s complete escapism, and I find personally that seeing kind of these costumes, these weird societies, helps me to forget my life and actually just dive into the story. That’s why, as an actress, I like being in them as well. It’s a way into a fantastic fantasy world.

What’s happening with your other film The Edge of Love?

KNIGHTLEY: It’s got American distribution so I think it’s coming out next year.

How do you think things have changed because of Georgiana?

KNIGHTLEY: I don’t know if it’s changed because of her.

Do you think she influenced the vote?

KNIGHTLEY: No, I mean it came up, what, two hundred years later? So, no. I think she was an impressive woman. I think it was fascinating that in a point where women were very much sort of the properties of their father’s and then their husband’s, that she actually managed to - and obviously didn’t have the right to vote, that she did get so passionately involved in politics. It’s a kind of fascinating thing for somebody who actually has no power, very few freedoms - if you could imagine that - that she was so - actually passionate about it.

And how do you think things are the same for women as it was back then?

KNIGHTLEY: Well, I think if you’re going back to the celebrity thing and it’s quite interesting what we still do today as we put women up on a pedestal and we pick apart exactly what they wear and what they look like. The fact that we haven’t moved on from that is quite interesting, I suppose.

What are those hip extensions on the costumes called?

KNIGHTLEY: Panniers.

Back in Time with 'Duchess' Keira Knightley Page 2