Though she’s only 35-years-old, Keira Knightley has been steadily acting in films and TV series since the mid-‘90s. Over the course of her decades-long career, she’s learned quite a bit about what she’s not willing to do anymore. And at this point in her career, it would seem as if nudity is probably off the table, unless it’s a very specific circumstance.
Speaking on the Chanel Connects podcast (via THR), Knightley talked about not wanting to do nudity in future projects. Though it’s not an outright ban on being nude in a film altogether, her experience in the past has changed her standards on what she deems is appropriate and not.
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“I don’t have an absolute ban [on filming nude scenes], but I kind of do with men,” Knightley explained. “It’s partly vanity and also it’s the male gaze.”
What is the “male gaze” she is referring to? She explained that the nudity she isn’t interested in are “those horrible sex scenes where you’re all greased up and everybody is grunting. I’m not interested in doing that.”
But even still, the actress understands that nudity is necessary, to an extent. But if possible, she’d rather have a body double to make that happen. But that’s is partly because of motherhood.
“Saying that, there’s 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,’ so therefore you can use somebody else,” she said. “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.”
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So, with all that said, are there instances where Knightley would bare all for the project? The actress does have one specific type of film or TV series in mind that she would be okay with showing her body in. But even if the story is right, Knightley would still prefer a female filmmaker behind the camera.
“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 film-maker,” she explained. “If it was about motherhood, about how extraordinary that body is, about how suddenly you’re looking at this body that you’ve got to know and is your own and it’s seen in a completely different way and it’s changed in ways which are unfathomable to you before you become a mother, then yeah, I would totally be up for exploring that with a woman who would understand that. But I feel very uncomfortable now trying to portray the male gaze.”
Knightley definitely has some experience in this realm, of course. Early in her career, she did her fair share of topless scenes. But it appears that experience has taught her a thing or two about what she wants for her career. And as we’ve seen time after time, women are being more outspoken regarding their mistreatment on film sets in the past. So, you can’t blame Knightley for having high standards for how she would approach nudity in the future.