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Keira Knightley is fresh off a plane from London – and thanks to the seven-hour flight and a five-hour time difference, she's having something akin to a senior's moment.
“My head's already gone, and it's the first interview of the day,” says the brunette beauty as she tries, haltingly, to explain how it came to be that she signed up for the role of Georgiana, the Duchess of Devonshire in the just-released film The Duchess. “This is horrifying,” says the 23-year-old, asking for a moment to recompose, and stretching her swan-like neck and shoulders.
“Okay, let's try this again,” she finally says, with a husky laugh. Knightley had flown in to attend the Toronto International Film Festival and to chat about her latest period drama (last year's were Atonement and Silk) about a complicated creature who ruled society – and helped change politics – in late-18th-century Britain.
A great-great-great-great-aunt of Diana, Princess of Wales, Georgiana was the It Girl of her time – a title often used to describe Knightley these days, even as the actress winces at the designation, and almost everything to do with celebrity. Georgiana was a fashion trendsetter, a staunch supporter of the Whig party, and a deeply unhappy woman, whose marriage to the Duke (Ralph Fiennes) was a living hell.
British actress Keira Knightley at the Park Hyatt Hotel in Toronto on September 6th, 2008. (SIMON HAYTER FOR THE GLOBE AND MAIL)
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On first reading the script, Knightley says, she became captivated by Georgiana – a vivacious, deeply troubled soul who, despite her storied celebrity and vast connections, was virtually powerless. “That someone could get so involved in politics and yet not have any rights whatsoever – not even the right to vote – was vastly interesting to me,” says the winsome actress, who donned air-sucking corsets and wore near metre-high wigs (some so heavy, people shouted “Timber!” as she walked by) for the role.
“I was fascinated by the fact that she was so lonely and so completely trapped. There was absolutely no point where she could get out [of her loveless marriage]. She couldn't move. She couldn't breathe. She couldn't do anything about the situation.
“There really was one set of rules for men, and a completely different set for women. For me, it's the story of a woman who goes from an idealist and a romantic to a realist. It's a terrifying, really sad journey.”
Knightley's own journey to the heights of filmdom began at home.
Her father is stage actor Will Knightley; her mother is playwright Sharman Macdonald (who just penned the script for the upcoming film, The Edge of Love, in which her daughter stars). Keira began acting at 7, landing various TV and film parts over the years.
Hollywood came knocking after she played tomboy footballer Juliette (Jules) Paxton in Gurinder Chadha's Bend It Like Beckham in 2002. Since then, Knightley's career has skyrocketed, with roles in the three instalments of Pirates of the Caribbean, opposite Orlando Bloom and Johnny Depp, and an Academy Award nomination two years ago for her part as Lizzie Bennet in Joe Wright's Pride & Prejudice. On that set, she met her current beau, the actor Rupert Friend.
Adapted from Amanda Foreman's award-winning biography, Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, director Saul Dibb's The Duchess starts his film in 1774, when, at 17, Georgiana marries one of England's richest and most influential aristocrats, William Cavendish. Launched into a world of wealth and power, she becomes the queen of fashionable society, is adored by the Prince of Wales, forges a close friendship with France's Marie Antoinette, and leads the most important salon of her time.
But at home, she is invisible. Unable to provide a male heir, Georgiana Spencer was trapped in a love triangle, with her husband's mistress, Bess – played by Hayley Atwell in the film – installed in their home. To mask the pain, Georgiana cavorted, campaigned, dazzled, drank, gambled, and cavorted some more.
“I liked the idea of this juxtaposition between this huge public persona – this kind of superstar, in a way – who was constantly surrounded by people, and yet was entirely alone and vulnerable,” says Knightley.
The marketing team at Paramount Vantage has been quick to play up the parallels between Georgiana Spencer and her far-removed niece, Lady Di. Blond, beautiful, bulimic and adored by an entire country, they led lives that led down eerily similar paths. But Knightley, looking regal in a pale Philip Lim dress and Olivia Morris heels, insists on downplaying Georgiana's link to the People's Princess. “The Royal Family? I don't know enough about them to really draw any parallels.”
Perhaps. But the parallels are undeniable nonetheless.
“Georgiana is simply a fascinating character in her own right. I think she was a romantic. I think she was a child. I think she went into [her marriage] believing in a myth that was never going to happen. She was needy, and required approval from everybody,” says Knightley.
“I think she fell in love with her husband and decided it would be the happiest thing in the world,” says the actress, who studied classics and English literature at Esher College on the outskirts of London.
“The Duke didn't see it like that. For him, it was a business. He needed an heir and a society figure befitting his wife. He didn't want companionship from her. He got it from his friends and his dogs. Sex and love came from the mistress. It was simply a different world.”
Director Dibb says Fiennes was the first, most obvious choice to play the Duke, a man who takes emotional constipation to a new level. “He could have become a cartoon villain of repressed aristocratic male Englishness, and when I sent the script to Ralph, that was his big worry,” says the director. “But we talked about how we weren't going to go for all the obvious things, how there would be a freedom to try and understand this man.”
Fiennes agrees that he struggled to make the man human. “He could be played as a cardboard-cutout villain, but everyone, I believe, has many sides to them,” said Fiennes, while in Toronto for TIFF. “The guy was thought to be very sociably awkward and uncomfortable, but I think in the end he did sustain quite a good friendship with Georgiana and with Bess. … I think he's insensitive, but I don't think he was intentionally cruel. I don't think he was a sadist of any kind. He was misguided, limited and emotionally stunted.”
“I actually felt sorry for him,” Knightley tells me, chuckling. “It's miraculous what he manages to do. Ralph takes the infamous British stiff upper lip to a whole new level.”
Georgiana married the Duke of Devonshire in a remarkable, fast-changing time. It was the era of Enlightenment, of the madness of King George III, the American and French revolutions, and the defeat of Napoleon. To capture this world – the last hurrah of the great aristocrats – Dibb created lavish sets and costumes (the wigs were steel birdcages with hair glued onto them), set the action in authentic, 18th-century country houses, including Kedleston Hall in Derbyshire (its owner played a footman in the film), the Bath Assembly Rooms, and Chatsworth House, the authentic seat of the dukes of Devonshire, an estate that covers 14,000 hectares, and is home to 175 rooms.
Knightley says she found shooting at Chatsworth an eye-opener, helping her better understand a character who had all the riches in the world, but no real home. “It's impossible not to empathize with her,” sighs the actress, whose skin glows with good health, despite the persistent tabloid speculation about her dangerously thin weight. “That's what I love about period films. You can take people from a completely different time – 200 years ago – and make them into these hugely powerful, very rich figures.
“And yet I think everybody would be able to look at Georgiana and empathize, sympathize, even pity her. Period pieces show human emotions really haven't changed that much,” adds Knightley, who next will be seen in The Edge of Love alongside Cillian Murphy, Sienna Miller and Matthew Rhys, in a story based on the early life of Welsh poet Dylan Thomas.
“I think Georgiana is a survivor. She doesn't survive unharmed, but she comes out the other side. These are not innocent characters,” Knightley says with a smile. “They're damaged, fascinating ones.”
The Duchess opened in Toronto yesterday, opens in Montreal and Vancouver on Sept. 26 and goes into wide release Oct. 3.
