Keira Knightley
Elizabeth Bennet gets aggressive in Domino
 

She’s been a world-class footballer, swashed a little buckle in the Caribbean and taken on the most famous role in British literature in Pride and Prejudice. But Keira Knightley’s biggest test comes this month playing a bastard hard bounty hunter in Domino. The perennial English rose just got thorny.

So what was it Tony Scott saw in you that said bounty hunter?
Fuck knows. I think it was more the model turned bounty hunter that might have got me there, so it was a very specific bounty hunter that he saw. She was not the average bounty hunter.
 

Indeed. You had to go to bounty hunter school to prepare, didn’t you? What was that like?
It was amazing. I had four days between this and Pride and Prejudice to get into Domino. They’d actually been filming for two weeks before I got there. One of the days I spent getting a visa to work in LA and the other three I spent at bounty hunter school. At first it was with Zeke, who was a bail bondsman and a bounty hunter, he ran a bounty hunter agency out of LA. So it was him giving me and Edgar Ramirez, who plays Choco in the film, a talk on bounty hunters. He explained to us what a bail bondsman was, what a bounty hunter did, what they were legally allowed to do, which is a really grey area. Where there’s a governing body as far as the police are concerned, like what you’re allowed to do and human rights and all that, there isn’t anything like that for bounty hunters.
 

I had four days between this and Pride and Prejudice to get into Domino
 

So what they can actually do to get somebody is quite interesting to learn about. I’m not going to go into it, but it was fascinating the lengths to which people will go to get money back. We went to one of those places where you go to do martial arts, what’s it called? Dojo! That’s the one. We went to a dojo and learned how to take people down and how to put the handcuffs on and the protocol when you’re arresting someone. Then we went out to the middle of the desert and we shot live shotgun rounds. I basically had to shoot all the guns that they had to shoot. Hated it. didn’t like it at all. Really liked all the stuff in the dojo and the actual taking down of people and learning how to do that. Didn’t like the guns.
 

They looked like quite powerful guns.
The shotguns that I actually never ended up using in the film, but we shot live rounds in the desert. Terrifying. My arm was absolutely huge. Me being me and always wanting to be one of the lads, thinking ‘if they can do that, I can do that’, I did it about four or five times. They said “you’ll only be able to do this once, because all the kick-back is going to be too much, you’re not going to be able to take it”. So I thought, ‘if you’re saying that, then I’m going to do it’. So I did it five times and I literally lost all feeling in my arm and the bruise was just huge, it was absolutely huge. That was quite scary.
 

How did you prepare mentally for the role?
Mentally, I haven’t got a clue. I learned a really big lesson, that 4 days between movies isn’t enough, especially when you’re doing something as different as going from Pride and Prejudice to downtown LA with shotguns. And that’s why I’m in this job, because I love the changes. But you do have to give yourself time to decompress, so that you can actually get the character into your head.

I found that really difficult, but in a funny kind of way, for this film it sort of helped, because the whole spirit of the film, it’s a really fast ride. The characters never quite know what’s going on and that’s how I felt, like I was flying by the seat of my pants as far as anything like that goes. This character, it isn’t a characterisation of Domino Harvey in any way, it is a bit of a characterisation of my best mate from school, who’s rock hard. So knowing her and not having much time to steal her personality, so I did that.
 

Does your best mate know this?
Yeah she does, but she’s fine with it because nobody else would be able to tell, it’s just an idea that I had in the back of my head. I kept her in the back of my head because I know her so well.
 

Did you ever meet the real Domino Harvey?
Yes I did. I didn’t know her and I’m sorry about that because I would have liked to have done, but I did meet her a couple of times. She was on set a lot. But Tony Scott, even from the moment I first met him for the role, said “I don’t want this to be in any way a characterisation of her. I want this to be our character, out creation, because it’s not a biopic”. It absolutely isn’t. The essence of the story – i.e. Lawrence Harvey’s daughter, was a model, becomes a bounty hunter – that all is. But the rest of it is a heist movie, so it’s actually fiction, it absolutely is.
 

This is our character, our creation - it's not a biopic

Why was she on set if it’s not a biopic?
She’d been helping with the script. What she’d done was give all the various writers involved in this, stories from her life and exactly how they happened to help with the storyline. And she was friends with Tony Scott, they’d been working on it for the last ten years. In fact, one of the songs in the movie is a song that Domino did for the film. So we’ve got one of her songs in there, which is cool.
 

There were stories that she wasn’t happy with what the film was saying. Is that true?
As far as I know, that’s complete fabrication. Obviously she can’t answer for herself anymore, but she was on set, she was helping the writers for the last ten years. All I can speak about is my own personal experience with her, which was always cool. I always asked her if she wanted me to do anything, because even though it’s not really her on screen you want to do right, but she just said “you know, do what you like, it’s cool”. It doesn’t kind of compute for me, my experience with that story, it really doesn’t. It doesn’t make sense. In fact, when the story came out I heard someone from Tony Scott’s production company saying we’ve just spoken to Domino and this is completely false. She was really angry about [rumours that she was unhappy].
 

How do you feel about the change of Domino’s sexuality from gay to straight?
Well I met her boyfriend. She had a boyfriend when I met her. I think that it is very simplistic to assume that someone is either straight or gay. We weren’t really interested in the sexuality. It’s not a film or ‘are you straight are you gay or are you bisexual?’; it’s not about that. I’m sure it would be very interesting film, but there is one love interest in this; there’s not two. It makes it more simplistic as far as the story goes, yes, but there are complications in other places in the story that haven’t dealt with sexuality. It’s not a biopic. If it was a biopic you’d go okay, in reality she had a boyfriend then a girlfriend. It’s a heist movie about ten million dollars being stolen and how we get it back, not about whether she has a boyfriend or a girlfriend. It’s just not that kind of film.
 

Domino seems to be very much a bad girl, you seem the opposite…
I think we all have different elements. I’d love to be one or the other, but I’m probably a combination of the two. I’m too lazy to be that strong in a way. But that’s what’s interesting about characters for me, is when they’re not perfectly black or white, they’re perfectly grey. That is like Domino. Yes, she does things where she is strong and she turns her back on things, but actually she’s extremely vulnerable at exactly the same time. That’s what makes characters interesting and that’s what makes them human as well. As far as am I like Domino? No, I’d never become a bounty hunter, it scared the hell out of me. I’d never want to do that at all and I’m very happy not knowing about any of that and living in a dream world.
 

I’d never become a bounty hunter, it scared the hell out of me
 

But still you have that thing of wanting to be one of the boys?
Yeah, that has more to do with someone saying you can’t do things and you saying ‘yes I can’. Being one of the boys in an innocent way means I want to play football with the boys and be picked for the team, something like that. It doesn’t mean I want to go to downtown LA and pick up some gangland guys. I think there are very few guys who want to do that.
 

And you’re working with Micky Rourke as the head of your bounty hunter troupe. What did you make of him?
I loved working with Mickey. Loved working with him. I can’t say enough good things about working with him. It was an honour, a privilege and what an amazing guy. He’s not afraid of who he is and he can’t help but be anyone but who he is. And what an amazing person to be. He’s very upfront about all his faults and that’s really cool. Especially today, as an actor or actress, you’re expected - and it’s a ridiculous thing for anyone to expect – to be perfect. And it is perfectly black or perfectly white and it’s always going to be wrong. And it’s always expected that you’ll hide all the imperfections, but I think it’s the imperfections that make people interesting.

Empire Magazine, November 2005
http://www.empireonline.com/interviews_and_events/interview.asp?IID=283

From an industry whose apogee is an acceptance speech of sentimental blather, there is an old, fondly persistent cliché that says the camera has favorites. It loves certain faces, women's faces, like a leering Lothario, an Arriflex Alfie. There is a testosterone ghost in the machine.

Keira Knightley The thing I was most often told about Keira Knightley was that the camera worshiped her, loved her to distraction. It moped inside when it wasn't filled with her, but its clockwork heart went tic-a-tic-a-tic when it had Knightley in its gate. It's nonsense, of course. A camera doesn't love your face any more than a bicycle seat loves your bottom or the washing machine despises your underwear. The truth is more obvious and prosaic: it's cameramen who like women's faces; it's directors who are wide-eyed for Keira Knightley.

In "Pride and Prejudice," the latest movie version of the Jane Austen classic, out next month, the camera follows her around like a besotted puppy. It flings itself out of windows and over furniture and through walls just to be close to her. When she's not there, it frantically rushes around whimpering, sliding off the rest of the cast in anticipation, and when it finally gets her on the sofa or backs her into a corner, it just licks her all over, in an ecstasy of devotion.

I am late for our lunch. When I get to Le Caprice in St. James's in London, the maître d' gives me a disapproving look and whispers that she has already been there for two whole minutes. They've lowered the blinds behind her. Outside the paparazzi are beginning to gather like Hitchcock crows.

I apologize. Knightley says it couldn't matter less. And then I take a proper look at her, and it comes as a bit of a shock - she is radiantly beautiful. I'd been girded for pretty, young, handsome, sexy, attractive, nubile, lithesome, toothsome even - and the face has all that - but all of it is concocted to a recipe that is really, rarely singularly beautiful. And it's sort of unexpected.

Are you eating?

"I'm starving."

One course or two?

"Three" - gazpacho and risotto, then Eton mess (meringue, strawberries and sugar).

She already has the practiced and teasing trick of deflecting and pre-empting inquiry by asking me questions.

"Where have you been? Oh, to your tailor - how wonderful. I'd love to have things made. What's it like?"

Reluctantly I drag the conversation back to her. Do you mind talking about being beautiful?

"Oh, no, it's sort of why I'm here."

It's just that a lot of actors are touchy about their good looks. They think it trivializes their massive talents.

"It's an awful lot of what this business is about, especially if you're a girl. And it can make you very insecure when so much concentration and expectation is staring you in the face. I can look into a mirror and tear my looks to bits. I know there are dozens of things wrong with me."

Like what, for instance?

"Well, when I smile at certain angles, I can look like I've got a broken nose like a boxer."

Oh, puh-leeze. Cut! Knightley's doing her Mike Tyson impression. And she laughs, just to show me.

As a general rule of grin, the beautiful don't have beautiful smiles. Nice smiles are God's consolation for plain faces, except of course that Knightley has a very lovely, utterly unpugilistic, melting smile that makes her look very young. She's just 20, but she has been acting professionally since she was 9. However, it was the appearance of her undulating abs in "Bend It Like Beckham" that kicked off her career.

Her role as Lizzy in "Pride and Predjudice" is an infinitely more assured, subtle performance. Believable, thoughtful, poignant and empathetic. It lays to rest that other Hollywood shibboleth: if the camera loves you, then the script is probably not talking to you. Acting has been a cram course for Knightley, all of it done, unforgivingly, in close-up, 20 feet by 10 feet, in public.

"I know to do less now and that there are things you can do on-screen that would look weird in real life, but what I like best about acting and film is working with directors. I like being inside their heads. Did you like 'Pride and Prejudice'?"

Yes and no. I liked her in it, but it's a loathsome story. In my mind, a 15-year-old girl is abducted and raped by a oldier, and her family pays him to marry her. It's all about selling your useless female children.

Skip to next paragraph

Keira Knightley "Oh, I suppose so. But isn't that the way it was?"

Perhaps, but Austen wrote it as satire; the movies are always just romance.

"But don't you think that Darcy is a wonderful character?"

He's a snotty prig who for no discernible reason becomes an embarrassing drip. She gives me the 100-watt raging-bull smile.

"It's a girl thing - we think he's wonderful, hard, then soft."

Do you really fall for that stuff?

"Of course, every time."

Knightley asked her mother if she could have an agent when she was 3. She read scripts instead of books as a way of overcoming her dyslexia. Both her parents work in the theater, and she has the movie star's touching reverence for stage acting. "That's what I would really like to do."

There are quite a lot of things that Knightley has missed out on since being married off to a camera so young. She's not had a proper holiday.

"I never got that gap year that all my friends had. I'd really like to travel."

Where?

"I don't know. Around Europe with a rucksack."

She has her own London apartment, which she loves but rarely has time to stay in. After shooting "Pride and Prejudice," there was Tony Scott's "Domino," and now she's filming the second and third parts of "Pirates of the Caribbean," or "Pirates of the Penzance," as my editor inadvertently called it.

"Wouldn't it be lovely if it were 'Pirates of the Penzance'?" Knightley says wistfully.

There is no rest for the beautiful. Do you have a lot of friends in the business?

"No, it's not a friendly industry. I know a lot of people, and I like most of them, but not friends. Not really."

We leave the restaurant by different routes, I through the front door, she through the kitchen and down into the basement garage, where a darkened limousine waits to speed Knightley past the flock of photographers. As we stand making our farewells, I notice that the whole room has fallen silent, stopped midmouthful. The Caprice is a tough place to impress. It gets three or four stars a sitting. With the couples, the waiters, the barmen, the coat check, the flower display, the bottles, the tables and the chairs all staring at Knightley with little, soppy, blissed-out smiles, it's like being out with Snow White.

I expect a brace of bluebirds and singing dwarves at any moment.

19 Oct 05 - http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/16/style/tmagazine/t_b_2089_2090_keira_.1.html
 

Keira Knightley has a lot going on in her professional life these days. What with promoting not one but two new movies, and shooting another two simultaneously, the pretty 20-year old Brit could be forgiven for being a tad tired. Yet the young actress remains good humoured despite an exhausting work schedule, which includes having worked late on the new Pirates of the Caribbean sequel till the wee hours of the morning. "I'm just here to support this movie because I'm so proud of it", says Knightley, referring to her intense, action-oriented Domino flick, first out of the gate.

From director Tony Scott and inspired by a real-life story, Knightley stars as Domino Harvey, who rejected her privileged Beverly Hills lifestyle as the daughter of famous actor Lawrence Harvey and a Ford agency model to become a bounty hunter in pursuit of society's nastiest criminals. The role presents a departure for the actress, though she's no stranger to physically demanding roles. "I don't think the decision to do the film had to do with anybody having seen me do anything," Knightley explains. "It was to do with the fact that True Romance is one of my favourite films ever and Tony Scott phoned up and went, 'I think you'd be really good for this role'. I thought that's amazing, read it and just thought, fuck, that's cool. I think the last three films that I've done have been the first three that I've actually had a choice."

Knightley has seen her career spiralling from virtual unknown to major star in just a few short years. The actress confesses to being "constantly surprised" as to the level of her success, and in dealing with that success, Knightley remains perennially pragmatic. "I'm just working all the time, so I don't have to deal with it," she says laughingly. "Of course, you never know in this profession when it's going to be up or down, so you've just got to enjoy it all while it's there and ride the wave as long as you can. That's what I find beautiful about acting, in that you can hopefully be talented, good looking and all the rest of it, but there are many people who are talented and good looking - you've also got to have a bit of luck. So I'd love to say, well, I work really hard and therefore I've become successful but that's bollocks: I've just been incredibly lucky in the work that I've been able to get. I can only - now that I am in a very fortunate position to be able to choose the work I do, only go with the kind of films that I'd like to see and the kind of stories that I want to live in. So that's, that's kind of what's driving me at the moment."

What drives her is the sheer diversity of her choices. Domino Harvey represents a real stretch for the actress, who was also attracted to her because she understood her. "I think that everybody can identify with her, in that there are points in absolutely everybody's life where we've gone: 'I want to be something completely different'. I mean I do it all the time, maybe that's why I'm an actress, but I think we all do. It takes a very certain kind of a person who actually has the strength to do that, to go in a completely different direction, and that's what fascinated me about her. What I didn't want to create was a one-dimensional character who's just a bad-ass who can kick down doors and all the rest of it. I thought her actions are strong - I didn't need to play that as much, so I also wanted to get that vibe that what she is, is that she's a really fucking lonely girl who has an incredibly vulnerable side as well. For me it's always more interesting with characters when you really play around with, with all the different emotions that you possibly can.

In addition to the adrenalin-charged Domino, audiences will see a different side of the actress as the independently minded Elizabeth Bennet in the new screen adaptation of Pride & Prejudice. Based on Jane Austen's classic 19th century tale of class and family, the film tells of the opinionated Elizabeth and an arrogant, aristocrat, Mr Darcy, who overcome their initial antipathy and various other social obstacles to fall in love. Again, not an obvious role for the actress, but one she clearly relished playing. "I've been obsessed by the book Pride and Prejudice since I was 7. I had it on book tape, used to listen to it on a loop, so, it's my favourite book, and had been for ages. So the opportunity to play her was amazing and couldn't really be turned down."

From the quietly elegant world of nineteenth century social mores, Knightley then stepped back into pirate mode for not one, but two sequels to the Hollywood blockbuster. She admits that shooting both films has been an interesting experience. "It's so very weird and just bigger and better," insisting that she's "not giving anything away." Yet revisiting her Pirates character has also been fun, adds the actress. "It's been really strange for me going back because I never wanted to have an alter ego. I think the thing I love about acting is changing as much as possible, so it was a character that I certainly didn't want to let go but they're a beautiful bunch of guys to work with. I'm extremely fortunate being able to watch Johnny do his thing, who is absolutely amazing, but at the same time it has been difficult trying to find that continuity because it's the first time I've played a character twice with two years in between. What's been quite nice is that we've said in the film, well, okay, they've grown up a bit so therefore we can let the characters evolve, as I now see Elizabeth Swann as being slightly different than the way I saw her when I was 17."

Currently single, from all accounts, Knightley still enjoys the nomadic life of an actor, who rarely has time to stay in her London flat. Each time we've met, Knightley laughingly admits that her fridge is pretty bare. Nothing has changed, Knightley concludes, laughingly. "Well I've got a lot of beer in there, though I don't know what I've got in there, since I've been over here for the last month." The actor's life for her!
05 Oct 05 - http://www.darkhorizons.com/news05/keira.php

Knightley is one busy lady these days

By ANN MARIE MCQUEEN -- Ottawa Sun
 

BEVERLY HILLS -- Keira Knightley is one in-demand 20-year-old.

The British actress was up all night shooting scenes for the second and third Pirates of the Caribbean instalments, with just enough time for a shower before meeting the press to talk about her newest movie, Domino.

With two cans of Red Bull in hand, the fetching and cheerful Knightley describes her exhaustion while looking so fresh-faced one would think she was in bed sleeping -- and not up swashbuckling -- all night.

"I was doing swordfighting and getting so tired I thought, 'I'm actually going to wreck myself,' and didn't hurt myself at all," she said. "But then when I got to the hotel this morning at 7, I fell out of the door of the car and cracked my knee on the side of the pavement."

Knightley's career took off after she played a soccer player in 2002's Bend It Like Beckham. In addition to the first Pirates, she went on to shoot another half-dozen movies, including King Arthur, Love, Actually and, most recently, The Jacket.

She had just four days off between her turn as Jane Austen heroine Elizabeth Bennett in Pride and Prejudice and Domino. The 43-day shoot was scheduled specifically so Knightley could squeeze it in.
 

Domino, which opens Friday, is inspired by real-life model-turned-bounty hunter Domino Harvey. The 35-year-old daughter of famed British actor Laurence Harvey died of an overdose in June while out on bail and under house arrest pending trial on drug dealing charges.

Because she had so little time to prepare, Knightley was left wondering just how she would morph into tough-as-nails Domino from refined and sensible Bennett. Knightley said she was "freaking out" every time director Tony Scott would call her on Pride to talk about Domino, finding herself for the first time unable to wrap her head around the character.

"Then I was passing a hairdresser's and I thought, 'Right, this is how I'm going to do it, I'm going to cut Lizzie Bennett out of my hair,' " she said.

Studied tapes

She talked to Harvey twice on the phone before she died, and studied taped interviews and pictures. But lack of prep time and the film's fictional elements meant Knightley framed Domino largely on her own.

"Actually, Tony said right at the beginning 'just make up your own character,' so actually I based it on my best mate Bonnie because she was around all the time when I was doing the other film and I could look at her."

Knightley did cut her hair -- though she was sporting long, straight extensions by the time it came to promote both movies -- and left Bennett behind, big-time. Body-baring outfits, dark eye makeup and a permanent sneer also helped her embody the gun-toting Harvey.

As Scott makes clear from words which flash across the screen during the opening moments of Domino -- "based on a true story ... kind of" -- he has not made a biopic.

After rejecting two more linear, realistic scripts as "boring," Scott tapped screenwriter Richard Kelly (Donnie Darko) who conjured up the frenetic tale while sitting in the U.S. Department of Motor Vehicles. A real-life attendant named Lateesha (played by zaftig comedian Mo'Nique Imes-Jackson) was his inspiration for the movie's outrageous plot-turning character.

The unlikely caper was then shot in Scott's signature jumpy, multiple-camera format, featuring a large and bizarre cast. Mickey Rourke and newcomer Edgar Ramirez round out Knightley's bounty team while dozens of real 18th Street gang members stepped in for a tense stand-off scene in the movie; Christopher Walken, Dabney Coleman, Lucy Liu and Mena Suvari all have small but memorable parts.

Reality show hosts

To take Domino's fictionalized reality a step further, Beverly Hills 90210 graduates Ian Ziering and Brian Austin Green turn up to play themselves as hosts of a reality show named Bounty Squad.

Kelly, a fan of 90210, insisted the pair stay in the movie even when New Line execs weren't convinced they were necessary.

Ziering jokes that when he got the script, he asked his agent "How much am I going to have to pay them to be in this movie?"

"It was the most random thing that could have happened, but it was something I hoped for," says Green. "I figured if Tarantino was a fan of Travolta, there's gotta be somebody that's doing well in this business that actually liked 90210."

Though Harvey isn't here to comment, several reports from unnamed friends since her death suggest she wasn't happy with the movie's liberties.

Scott scoffs at reports she felt sold out by the film, angry particularly at its depiction of her as heterosexual. In life she had relationships with women; on screen Knightley-as-Harvey goes topless for a steamy desert sex scene with Venezuelan co-star Edgar Ramirez.

Domino doesn't touch on her drug problems or early death; Scott says again, the movie is based on real people but is almost entirely fiction.

Scott says Harvey never saw the finished film but watched many sequences and was there on the final day of shooting. "It's been misreported by the press, saying she didn't like it and she's pissed off that we didn't represent it in the right way," says Scott. "And everything she saw she loved."

Harvey also wrote and sang the track Heads You Lose, Tails You Die, which plays at the beginning and end at the film. "That was her motto for life,"said Scott.

As for rumours he shifted the film's opening date to capitalize on Harvey's death, Scott says he only moved it up avoid competing with Knightley's Pride release Nov. 18.

Domino Harvey's father became a major star after appearing in 1959's Room at the Top and 1962's The Manchurian Candidate, but died when she was four. Her mother Pauline Stone, a Vogue model played by Jacqueline Bisset in the movie, later married Hard Rock Cafe chain owner Peter Morton.

Harvey was expelled from four different schools, dabbling in modelling, acting, being a ranch hand and a firefighter before she found her niche: Hunting down thieves, drug dealers and murderers for a Los Angeles bail bond agency.

Scott says he became like a surrogate father to Harvey during a friendship which started 12 years ago when he visited her at home on one of her many bounty-hunting breaks. "Her mom wouldn't let her live in the house with guns so she lived in an apartment above the garage. The apartment had AK-47s and fatigues and Soldier of Fortune magazines," Scott recalled.

Like others in her circle, Scott worried about Harvey as she struggled with addictions, in and out of rehab before her death.

"She lived a hard life," he said. "I wasn't surprised, but it still hurts."
09 Oct 05 - http://jam.canoe.ca/Movies/Artists/K/Knightley_Keira/2005/10/09/1255234.html

Keira Knightley: Bounty Huntress
by Lynn Barker  10/10/2005
 

Whoa!

Domino
Credit: New Line Cinema
If you thought ultra-hot Keira Knightley looked pretty tough swinging a pirate sword, you’ve got to see her talkin’ trash and shootin’ everything in sight in her new actioner Domino. Be warned that the film is rated “R” for lots of violence, trash talking and a teeny bit of some flesh in a love scene so make your movie going decisions accordingly. From wearing very femme, old-fashioned costumes for her role in the upcoming Pride and Prejudice, the actress made a quick conversion to jeans and leather to immediately embody the part of Domino.

Keira is Domino Harvey, a real-life femme bounty hunter and daughter of famous 60’s film star Laurence Harvey who went from a privileged life as the daughter of a Hollywood star to transform herself into a bounty hunter. The real Domino visited the set as a consultant but died of a drug overdose before the film could be released.
 
 

Domino
Credit: New Line Cinema
The day we got to sit down with Keira she was drinking a ton of Red Bull because she had finally wrapped the L.A. shoot of “Pirates” 2 and 3 at 6:30 that very morning and was a bit tired. Keira and the cast go on in the Bahamas until Feb or March, 2006. Swinging her “Pirates” hair extensions (she has a pert short cut in Domino), Keira bounced in wearing a casual black stretch top, mid-calf black pants and gold, studded flats. She tucked her feet up under her in the chair, took a swig of Red Bull and we were off on our chat...

TeenHollywood: Did you get a potty mouth doing this role?

Keira: [laughing] I have a potty mouth anyway, I’m British. If anything I had to turn down my language.

TeenHollywood: This role is really action-packed. What did you have to do physically to prepare for it?

Keira:

Domino
Credit: New Line Cinema
I had four days off in between finishing Pride and Prejudice and starting Domino, so I didn’t get physical preparation that I think I would have liked, obviously because I didn’t have the time. However, I did have a trainer who would come at about 4:30 every morning and just jog with me before I went onto the set of Pride and Prejudice. And I did have a couple of lessons with nunchucks so towards the end of Pride and Prejudice I was in my ball frocks doing nunchucks on the side of the set, which was quite fun. But then once I got to L.A. we had two days of bounty hunter training school, so we went out into the middle of the desert and shot some shotguns and things like that, which was quite interesting.

TeenHollywood: What did you learn from the real Domino?

Keira:

Domino
Credit: New Line Cinema
The real person I met twice before we started filming. Because I was doing another film, I didn’t get to spend the time that I’d need to have spent with her to do a direct characterization, so therefore I actually based the character on my best mate, because she was around a lot and I could look at her and go, ‘Right, okay, that’s it.’ Domino was around quite a lot during shooting and [director] Tony [Scott] gave me interviews with Domino just to listen to, so I had some idea of the life experience that had gone into the whole bounty hunting thing. He gave me photographs of her and pictures that had inspired him, so I had visual references.

TeenHollywood: Did you learn anything from playing her? She seemed to be uncomfortable being herself.

Keira:

Domino
Credit: New Line Cinema
I think you’re not going to find anybody in life who doesn’t dream of being something else now and again. I don’t think I learned that from the film, I think that’s there anyway. What really struck me about the character was the strength of somebody who really does change their life, who is going down one path and then all of a sudden just takes a completely opposite turn. I think that’s a fascinating thing, and that’s what really drew me to it, to go ‘wow there is this girl who has everything that in modern day society we think we want, or we’re told that we want, she’s in this royalty of Hollywood glamour and all the rest of it and she turns her back on it’, and I thought that was a really fascinating, strong, brave, crazy kind of move to make.

TeenHollywood: Do you think you take roles so that you can play something in a movie what you wouldn’t do in real life because you’re too afraid of it?

Keira: [stops to think] Yeah, probably. Yeah. I don’t know, I love looking at other characters, I love looking at different walks of life. I tend to think that one of the only ways that you can really be a totally impartial observer is if you’re never really tried it. I found it fascinating to go into all the strip clubs and fascinating to hear all the stories about the [drug] trips and everything else, but I think I like the stories. I don’t think I would like the reality.

TeenHollywood: You were working with real L.A. gang members. Was that a surprise?

Keira: Tony told me before and gave me pictures of all the guys. You know what? They were great, they were really great. They were sweet guys. They were very respectful, great to my mom, had good conversations.

TeenHollywood: You’re kidding. Your mom sat down and chatted with tough gang members?

Keira:

Domino
Credit: New Line Cinema
Yeah. She said, ‘So what’s this tattoo, and what’s this one?’ And they’d explain all the tattoos, and they were great, and doing the scene [with them] was a hard scene for me to do because it was the first week of filming and suddenly I’ve got to give this guy a lap dance, and I haven’t got a clue! They were really, really nice to me.

TeenHollywood: How was actually acting with them?

Keira: It was interesting for me because I think maybe it’s a British school of acting but I always take it that the script is the absolute Bible and whatever the words are it’s my job to say those words and make them sound as good as possible. But these guys weren’t sticking to a script, and they were just going off on their own tangent, and I was kind of standing there going, ‘Oh God, improvisation, improvisation!’ But it was great, it really set the tone for the movie.

TeenHollywood: Can you talk about the love scene and deciding to show as much as you did?

Keira:

Domino
Credit: New Line Cinema
I’m European so as far as showing as much as I did, I don’t have that conservative-can’t-show-my-tit-vibe. I found it extraordinarily liberating to be topless in the middle of the desert, marvelous. I just put on some sunscreen and I was ready to go.

TeenHollywood: There was an interesting tattoo on your neck in the film. What did it say?

Keira: It’s an inaccurate quote actually – what it says on my neck is, ‘Tears in the rain,’ and the actual quote is ‘Like tears in rain.’ It’s from Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner.

TeenHollywood: What was your favorite quality or personality trait that you put into the character of Domino?

Keira:

Domino
Credit: New Line Cinema
I didn’t want to play a one-dimensional character. I thought it’s really easy when you think of a girl who’s a bounty hunter, you go, ‘well yeah, she’s really tough’. I wanted to bring a vulnerability out in her, I wanted that idea that actually she is lonely. I don’t know if this is the fact about the real Domino, but I wanted to play that idea of she does feel abandoned by the mom and the father dying was huge, so she’s a very lonely character and in a funny kind of way she’s a girl who keeps on coming up against brick walls. The way she tries to make herself feel alive is getting the adrenaline rush of going into things. I wanted to get that vulnerability across because as far as the badass nature of it, that was obvious in her actions and I thought it was really important to show a little girl who is actually really f*****g lonely, so I suppose that’s what I tried to do.

TeenHollywood: What was the biggest challenge for you?

Keira:

Domino
Credit: New Line Cinema
The guns were the biggest challenge definitely. I enjoy doing action sequences but I was really surprised at how freaked out I was. The shotgun I was kind of all right with. I got a big bruise on my arm and it felt rock hard, it was great. The semi-automatic I was kind of fine with, but the machine guns, I shot them the first time and got so freaked out that I burst into tears. It absolutely crippled me, I was in pieces. And everyone went, ‘Well, do you want another go?’ and I went, ‘No, no, no if I practice again I won’t be able to do it in the scene, so let’s just shoot it.’ What I was meant to do was jump up and then start shooting. Tony shouts action and my knees locked, because I was so frightened. I was shaking. So he came over to me and he went, ‘Listen, I’ll shout action and you start screaming, and I guarantee if you scream your way through it you’ll be able to stand up and shoot the guns,’ and he was absolutely right. But it freaked the hell out of me.

TeenHollywood: What challenges face you in the “Pirates” sequels?

Keira: Just getting through it. There’s always challenges, but I can’t tell you because I’d be giving something away, and I’m not going to give it away.

TeenHollywood: Well, can you talk about playing the same character in the sequels?

Keira:

As Elizabeth Swan in Pirates Of The Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
Credit: Walt Disney
Yeah, it’s the first time I’ve played the same character and that’s really weird because for me it’s very much about trying to change as much as possible, that’s how it stays interesting. I’ve never had to worry about continuity as far as coming back two years later and trying to remember what that character was. It’s kind of cool, because what we’re basically saying is, listen, they’ve grown up, they’ve moved on, you aren’t the same person from one year to the next, so that’s all right, so I guess Elizabeth’s growing as I am, hopefully.

TeenHollywood: Doesn’t it feel strange to work that long on the same character? To have Elizabeth Swan be part of your life?

Keira:

Keira Knightley and Johnny Depp in Pirates Of The Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
Credit: Walt Disney
It’s really weird, and I’ve never faced anything like this and that’s why I say getting through it will be amazing, because at the most I’ve done 5 ½ months and that seemed like a lifetime, because I love that idea of ships passing in the night. I love changing as much as possible and it’s like doing a marathon, you really have to pace yourself. But, I love the people I’m working with. Actually a lot of the crew members were the same crew members as on Domino. I’ve done four films with them now and they’re amazing guys. To work with Orlando and Johnny and Jack and Geoffrey, they are such a beautiful bunch of people, I couldn’t ask for a nicer bunch, but yeah it’s tough doing something for that long, especially when what you enjoy about something is changing characters.

TeenHollywood: Domino is smoking up a storm. Are you a smoker?

Keira:

Domino
Credit: New Line Cinema
I’m afraid as European as I am, I don’t mind taking my top off, I do have the occasional glass of wine and the occasional cigarette, but no I don’t smoke on a regular basis. They were all herbal cigarettes, which are disgusting, and the scene with Lucy Liu that runs all the way through the film, we actually shot that as one scene, it was a 12 minute scene or something ridiculous and to puff all day on these herbal cigarettes, I’ve never felt so lightheaded in my entire life. I was totally zoned out, it was fantastic.

TeenHollywood: What was your favorite Domino takedown?

Keira: Well, nothing against Brian Austin Green, but I loved punching him in the nose. It was great. I really enjoyed that.

TeenHollywood: Did you watch 90210 in England?

Keira:

Brian Austin Green after being punched by Domino
Credit: New Line Cinema
A little bit, yeah. I think I got the repeats, it was always on on Saturday morning.

TeenHollywood: Do you like the short or long hair best?

Keira: It was liberating to cut it off.

Pride and Prejudice
Credit: Focus Feature
The reason I cut my hair off was because I was so in Lizzy Bennett [Pride and Prejudice] mode that I couldn’t get my head into Domino until I was passing a hairdresser and thought, ‘I’ll cut her out of my hair,’ and that’s what I did, and that was extremely liberating. I’m one of those people who, when I have short hair I want long hair, and if I have long hair I want short hair.

And, with a toss of her long hair extensions and a toss of the empty Red Bull into the trash can, she’s off.
10 Oct 05 - http://www.teenhollywood.com/d.asp?r=108515&cat=1038#

THE ARTS

Austen’s powerhouse
This fall, sprightly 20-year-old Keira Knightley goes from bodice to bounty hunter

By TONY PHILLIPS
Friday, October 14, 2005
 

Rare is the gay MAN, in these weeks leading up to the rollout of Tony Scott’s latest schlock-fest “Domino,” who hasn’t spun on a heel toward the camera, exhaled twin plumes of smoke from flared nostrils and announced in his best Queen’s English: “I’m Domino Harvey.”

“Is that quite right?” Keira Knightley asks me in the same dulcet Oxbridge tone. I’m forced to admit that I, at least, have got my Domino down. And, horrifyingly, she’s giggling and begging me to let her have it. I oblige, and her brow remains permanently cocked in my direction for the duration of our interview.

I want to drag her — cocked eyebrow, Nefertiti pendant and all — past the first velvet rope I see. “I really don’t go out much,” she begs off, “I don’t go to the cool clubs. If I’m in New York, I have no idea whatsoever. I haven’t got a clue. There are some great restaurants. I love SoHo. I love it down there. It’s fantastic.”

Now here’s the rub — wait for it — “I’m not officially allowed to drink here,” the 20-year-old says, matter-of-fact.

“London’s great,” she continues on the subject of nightclubbing, “I can tell you about the sleaziest bars in London: really good funk soul bars that are underground, but dirty and fantastic. But actually, you know what? I’m not going to, because if I do then you’ll know where I am and you’ll totally ruin it for me.”

Blonde bangs AND the super-satch palette make it easy to forget we’re not even supposed to be discussing Domino Harvey. Knightley’s in town to promote that other fall project in which she inhabits practically every frame: Focus Features’ lush adaptation of Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice.”

Knightley herself says she would duck the historians who’d come in to give lectures and etiquette lessons on the Austen set to perfect Harvey’s kickboxing routine with a trainer. So she’s fine with letting a little bounty hunter chat slide.

But she’s also eager to talk about her Austen heroine, Lizzie Bennet, a character she describes as “an incredibly passionate, witty, intelligent, just-amazing being, but also somebody who’s so annoying you want to kick her up the ass and just say, ‘Oh, sort it out!’

She’s flawed.”

Knightley is not. She’s found the fading sun streaming into her Mandarin Oriental suite and she’s working it like key lighting. The flaw, perhaps, lies not on her body, but her body of work. Her character Jules, in the sleeper-hit “Bend It Like Beckham” was, quite famously, de-gayed. As that work of fiction went on to win a GLAAD Media Award, it may be OK.

She seems genuinely surprised to learn of that film’s excised lesbian storyline and says, almost offhandedly, “Yeah, I never read that version. You can only do the piece that’s put in front of you.”

But what about the recently-deceased Harvey, who, before she was found dead in her West Hollywood bathtub at 35, was rumored to be quite pissed at the big-screen version of her life playing it straight?

“There’s no point in going, ‘Oh, but she had a relationship with a woman,’” is how Knightley answers the Harvey charge. “If you’ve seen ‘Domino,’ there’s not really much room for anything else in it. It’s a pretty full piece.”

And with any story you do, Knightley says, there’s bound to be a million things left out. “You know, my mom’s a writer and reading some of her stuff and then seeing what she has to cut is heartbreaking sometimes. There are so many fantastic scenes and so many storylines that just have to get chucked away. That’s the nature of the beast.”

So third time’s the charm? Might her burgeoning gay following actually see Knightley as a card-carrying lesbian on the big screen sometime soon?

“Yeah,” she chuckles,” If the script’s good, why not?” Let’s hope so, as we’ve been practicing our kickboxing, too.
14 Oct 05 - http://www.newyorkblade.com/2005/10-14/arts/thearts/powerhouse.cfm

KEIRA G GOES GUN HO Aug 20 2005
 

Pirates of Caribbean beauty is causing mayhem in Hollywood and is loving it

By Adam Stone

IT'S hard to believe that Keira Knightley is only just into her twenties. But she couldn't make the jump to womanhood without one last teenage fling.

Her hair is hacked short and dyed blonde, her perfect skin daubed with tattoos, a machine gun is over her slender shoulder for Domino - the last stand for Hollywood's teen queen.

It's easy to forget that this British beauty was, until her 20th birthday in March, just a girl - albeit with the status of a leading lady. At the point where most of her peers are only beginning to reach for their goals and ambitions, Keira has already achieved most of hers.

Keira's teens started with a role in Star Wars blockbuster The Phantom Menace, when the 13-year-old played the double of Natalie Portman's Queen Amidala.

In the years since, the girl from leafy Middlesex has gone on to match Portman's star status.

After her breakthrough role in surprise hit Bend It Like Beckham, she made her name in Pirates of the Caribbean and King Arthur, pulling off performances way above what might be expected of a teen actress.

Now she finds herself a leading lady in her own Hollywoodmovie.Domino, out on October 14, is an action-packed romp based on the true story of a bounty hunter. Before that, we'll see Keira back in her corset as Elizabeth Bennet in Pride and Prejudice on September16.

Keira is still in full costume when she takes a break from filming to talk about her latest venture on the Domino set in LA.

It's a warm day, yet she pulls her leather jacket tight over her chest - maybe she's embarrassed about those tattoos?

"No, I actually like the tattoos," she smiles back at the suggestion. "I'm very glad to wipe them off at the end of the day, but it's quite nice to have them."

The movie itself is loosely based on the life of Domino Harvey, the daughter of Room At The Top actor Laurence.

She turned her back on a career as a top model to pursue criminals across America and cash in on their capture.Tragically, she was found dead at the age of 35 in the bath of her Hollywood home in June this year. Keira has the talent to carry the part off, but it's taken hair, make-upand careful preparation to give her that hard edged look.

"I actually look very different from Domino Harvey," she continues. "She was taller than me but I like my new look."

Keira is also relishing joining that ever-growing gang of all-action Hollywood women.Uma Thurman did it for Kill Bill, Kate Beckinsale did it for Underworld and Van Helsing, even Oscar-winner Charlize Theron is doing it for Aeon Flux.

"Nun-chucks was the big one," grins Knightley, recounting her arsenal of props for Domino. "I use guns too. I think I also do a couple of knife throws.

"I've got to tell you how I got this," she excitedly adds as she opens her jacket and points to her chest.

"I was shooting two machine guns. It was fantastic. I had a machine gunjumped out the back and hit me right here.

"I didn't know until afterwards. I went home and had a shower and I had fake blood all over meand suddenly something wouldn't come off.

"It's a fabulous burn. I'm very proud of it because everyone looks at it and goes, 'Wow, what happened?' I go, 'oh just a machine gun'."

That's the thing about movies. She may becoming of age but in Hollywood there's little need to not act like a kid - at least on the film set anyway.

"There are days when I feel like a woman and others when I feel like a young girl," says Knightley when the subject of reaching the big 2-0 is brought up.

"I'm still like a typical teenager in some ways I suppose but I also have to support myself, and have done for a long time."

Despite her success, Keira feels she has most of her growing up to do as an actress. "It's true," she shrugs. "I don't think I know the craft well enough to have earned the right to call myself an actress.

"I would like to dosome stage work in London. I hope it will help my credentials." Domino is about as far removed from treading the boards in London's West End as you can get, and she insists that all the guns, fights and car chases will do little to further her skills as an actress.

But what 20-year-old could pass up a chance to act out their big budget fantasy with Hollywood as their playground?

"The moment I read the script, I thought, 'This is so cool'," Keira recalls. "It's a black comedy, really dark and nasty.

"But there's something about it, you're just completely swept up in it.

"At that point I knew that I was doing Pride and Prejudice and I got a real kick out of the idea of going from Elizabeth Bennet to Domino. I think the whole concept of this girl who's from an extremely privileged background who completely turns her back on all of it and goes off on this wild path is an extraordinary idea in itself.

"Then there's the fact a lot of it is based on reality. That's fascinating."

Keira met the real Domino before shooting but director Tony Scott gave her a lot of room to interpret the character for herself.

"Originally, I thought that it wouldbe really interesting to just play her exactly the way she was and do the voice and everything," she says.

"Then I met her and heard all her stories which were amazing, but although the movie is totally inspired by her andby her character, it isn't true to her story.

"So I thought, 'Well, seeing as we're not completely telling her story, it gives me a sort of freedom to actually dowhat I want'. "They very kindly gave me a lot of tapes of her speaking and everything but I haven't used any of it.

"It was just great to listen to it andbe acquainted with it and have that in the back of my head when filming.

"Actually, what was interesting was that she's lived in the UK since she was about eight-years-old.

"I sort of expected right at the start that it wouldbean American accent because she's beenover here so long. "But it actually isn't. It's English. So I thought, 'Well, I'll keep myown accent.'That's fine."

It's clear that British stiff upper lip is very much a part of Keira. She's proud of her country and although she loves the LA life and especially the weather, she hasn't made it her second home - yet.

"I bought a flat near HydePark in London which is where I go to chill out," Keira says, unable to hide the hint of longing for home in her slightly prissy voice.

She has recently split from her model boyfriend Jamie Dornan, but she is close to her parents and has a close circle of friends back in London who help keep her grounded.

"I ask for their opinion a lot, and what they say goes," she says of her actor father Will and playwright mother Sharman.

"It means a lot to me to be able to ask for their advice when I don't know what to do, but that's less often these days."

It's clear Knightley came of age long before her 20th birthday, which she celebrated with a party back home. She has achieved more in her short career than manydo in a lifetime.

She was last seen as an alcoholic Vermont waitress inThe Jacket and then there's Pride and Prejudice and a sequel to blockbuster Pirates of the Caribbean on the cards. And with no shortage of offers beyond that, it seems there's plenty to keep Keira busy.

But right at this minute there's more mindless fun to be had.

She stands upand heads off to the cast and crew for Domino.

"We're flipping a Winnebago," she giggles as she waves a goodbye. "Someone drugs us and then we're riding in a Winnebago which flips and crashes.

"I think we're goingto have a lot of fun with this scene

BUT IT'S NOT ALL ROSES FOR LOVE-SPLIT KEIRA

DESPITE her rosy future, it seemed her recent split with boyfriend Jamie Dornan had caught up with Keira as she was spotted looking down in the dumps on the balcony of her London flat.

Looks like she could do with a new action man
20 Aug 05 - http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/tm_objectid=15876965&method=full&siteid=89488&headline=keira-g-goes-gun-ho--name_page.html

OK! Magazine, 17th May 2005
Interview by Samantha Rock.
 

Actress Keira Knightley has already shown she has a wide repertoire when it comes to films. She played the devastatingly gorgeous newlywed Juliet in the smash-hit Love Actually and sword-fought in a corset alongside Johnny Depp and Orlando Bloom as Elizabeth Swann in Pirates of the Caribbean. The lucky 20 year old was recently quoted as saying: ‘You’re working with Johnny Depp, you get stranded on an island with him and you get to kiss Orlando Bloom and that’s another average day at the office really’. Our hearts bleed !
Keira has just completed the Pirates sequel as well as popping out a couple of other high-profile movies in between. She filmed psychological thriller The Jacket and will soon be on screens as Elizabeth Bennet in a film version of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.
Then there’s her role as tattooed model-turned-bounty hunter Domino Harvey in the soon-to-be-released film Domino. Her character, the real-life daughter of actor Laurence Harvey, ditched a career as a Ford model to become a bounty hunter. Domino is a sidestep from Keira’s usual family-style movie with more than a splattering of nudity, bad language and body art. ‘There are a lot of interesting things that you’ll have to wait and see!’ she laughs.
Here Keira, who is dating model Jamie Dornan, chats about her latest role, working alongside Mickey Rourke and getting naked on screen.

- Domino is quite a sexy film isn’t it?
- There’s nudity. We do a lot of stuff in strip clubs. Not particularly me, but yeah, I had my first strip club experience which was great!

- But there are quite a few shocking scenes…
- Well, everything is shocking. It’s a shocking film. It’s very violent. There is sex, violence, nudity and  bad language, so I’m pretty sure that it gets you on all fronts. I don’t know specifically what’s true and what isn’t. I can say that honestly. I think that a lot of it is inspired by truth with a lot of artistic licence along the way. So who knows – but I think that’s the beauty of film in general. It’s a mystery.

- You don’t look your normal self in the film. What did you make of the tattooed look?
- I liked it a lot. I was very glad to wipe the tattooes off at the end of the day, but while filming it was quite nice to have them. I really enjoyed playing her. And the hair too !

- You’d literally just finished filming Pride and Prejudice beforehand. Domino isn’t exactly Jane Austen, is she?
- I had four days in between the films. I didn’t realise it was going to be as difficult as it was to make the transition. It was actually really strange. But just trying to change that quickly from one character to the other and them being so different was difficult. That’s what it’s all about.

- What made you decide to do Domino?
- Tony Scott [the film’s director]. I mean, I read the script, which must have been back in March of 2004, I think, and then I flew over to Los Angeles to meet Tony the next month. The moment that I read the script, I thought, this is so cool. It’s really a black comedy, really dark and nasty and all the rest of it. But there’s something about it, you read it and you’re completely swept up in it. At that point I didn’t know I was going to do Pride and Prejudice and I got a real kick out of the idea of going from Elizabeth Bennet to Domino. I think that the whole concept of the story, the whole idea of this girl who’s from an extremely priveleged background who completely turns her back on all of it and goes off on this wild path is an extraordinary idea in itself.

- What was it like meeting Tony Scott?
- I came out to the States and met Tony and he’s just incredible, a total inspiration. You know that because most of his crew has been working with him for ten or fifteen years. And that doesn’t happen unless they completely adore him, and they do completely adore him. You walk on set and it’s just such a great atmosphere and it’s lovely to be a part of that.

- Did you do your own stunts in the film?
- Yeah. It actually worked out that way. I didn’t think I was going to do as many as I normally do. I didn’t have the chance beforehand to do as much training as I would because I came straight from another film. But as filming went on I did more and more, so it was great fun.

- You ended up with a minor injury to your face, didn’t you?
- I was shooting two machine guns – it was fantastic ! I had a machine gun in each hand, and one of the shells jumped out the back and hit me. I didn’t know until afterwards. I went home and had a shower and I had fake blood all over me and suddenly something wouldn’t come off. It’s a fabulous burn. I’m very proud of it because everyone looks at it and goes: “Wow, what happened?” I go: ‘It was nothing. It was just a burn mark from my machine gun’!

- What kind of weapons did you use?
- Nunchucks was the big one. And guns. I think that I do a couple of knife throws too. But I just had to train and practise punching people in the face really! So watch what you ask me!

- Apparently you were quite a dab hand with the guns…
- My left isn’t as good as I’m right-handed, and if you’re a proper nunchuck person, you should be as good on both hands. I’m not. It could’ve been better but it could’ve been a hell of a lot worse.

- Did you have a special exercise regime to get in shape for the film?
- No, not at all actually. I mean, because I was doing Pride and Prejudice, I did have a trainer towards the end to try and get me ready. But wewere working 14-hour days and then I was trying to do a tiny bit of training either at the end of the day or before I went to work.

- Did you get to meet the real Domino before you started filming?
- I did very briefly, way before we started filming. Originally, I thought that it’d be really interesting to do everything. Then I met her and heard all her stories – which were amazing – so although the film is inspired by her and by her character, it isn’t true to her story. So I thought, well, seeing as we’re not completely telling her story, it gives me the freedom to actually do what I want.

- Did you learn anyhting from her that you used in the film?
- It was fascinating to hear her talk about the decisions that she made – it definitely helped with my character. Actually, what was interesting was I expected her to have an American accent but it isn’t. It’s English. So I thought, well I’ll keep my own accent!

- What was it like working with Mickey Rourke?
- Oh I love him to bits. I think that he’s incredible. It was so amazing just watching him. I think he’s great in the film and he’s such a laugh. It was a really lovely experience.

- Did you learn anyhting from her that you used in the film?
- It was fascinating to hear her talk about the decisions that she made – it definitely helped with my character. Actually, what was interesting was I expected her to have an American accent but it isn’t. It’s English. So I thought, well I’ll keep my own accent!

- What was it like working with Mickey Rourke?
- Oh I love him to bits. I think that he’s incredible. It was so amazing just watching him. I think he’s great in the film and he’s such a laugh. It was a really lovely experience.