Keira Knightley has said that she is no longer interested in doing sex scenes just to appeal to men, adding that if there was a female director was behind the camera, she might consider it. The Pirates Of The Caribbean star also revealed that the ‘no-nudity’ clause in her contracts is partly because she now has two children.
In conversation with director Lulu Wang and writer-producer Diane Solway on the Chanel Connects podcast, Knightley said that the “male gaze” and her own personal vanity was the reason behind her decision.
“I feel very uncomfortable now trying to portray the male gaze,” said Knightley. “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 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,” she continued.
The actor further said: “We all empathise with men hugely because, culturally, their experience is so explored. We know so many aspects of even male sexuality. But we don’t feel like men can say, ‘Yes, I understand what you’re talking about because I’ve got this wealth of art and film and theatre and TV from your point of view.’”
The British actress, 35, added a no-nudity clause to her contract after having children, saying she was more vocal now than she had been as a breakout star in her early 20s in movies like Pride And Prejudice and Atonement.
“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 filmmaker,” Knightley said. “I don’t have an absolute ban, but I kind of do with men.”
“I don’t want it to be those horrible sex scenes where you’re all greased up and everybody is grunting. I’m not interested in doing that,” she added.
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In the past, Knightley has spoken in the past of clashes with male directors, launching a broadside against male colleagues in a 2018 essay:
“They tell me what it is to be a woman. Be nice, be supportive, be pretty but not too pretty, be thin but not too thin, be sexy but not too sexy, be successful but not too successful. … But I don’t want to flirt and mother them, flirt and mother, flirt and mother. I don’t want to flirt with you because I don’t want to fuck you, and I don’t want to mother you because I am not your mother. … I just want to work, mate. Is that OK? Talk and be heard, be talked to, and listen.”
“Male ego. Stop getting in the way.”
