Courtesy of my lovely friend Lora, I’ve added scans of Keira’s cover feature for the December issue of Harpers Bazaar UK to the gallery. For me, this is one of her best shoots in recent years – and I’m sure it will be used for a layout at some point in the future. Enjoy!
Keira has been named as one of the Women of the Year by Harpers Bazaar UK, and features as one of the cover stars for the December issue of the magazine (two years after her last cover for the publication). As well as a stunning new photoshoot, there’s an interview with Keira where she discusses motherhood, feminism, and her role in Colette. The magazine is available on newsstands now.
HARPERS BAZAAR UK – You can see the panic in Keira Knightley’s eyes. This morning she has been trying to work out where to send her three-year-old daughter, Edie, to school next year, the kind of conundrum that to non-parents seems laughable and to parents becomes a sanity-devouring subject that has no happy ending.
There’s the local school, which she likes but her child might not get into, or the variety of private schools she’s not sure about, or home-schooling, which she would definitely never do. “And I’ve literally just gone crazy looking at every single one in London!” she says, laughing in the slightly possessed way of the deranged.
Knightley is sitting in an Islington café, not far from where she lives with her daughter and her musician husband, James Righton. The last time we met, five years ago, she was post-marriage, pre-baby. Back then, she’d just been in Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit, a ‘piece of popcorn’ as she called it, and she was sweary and ferocious and funny. This time, she’s just put in a powerhouse performance in the title role in Colette and she’s still sweary and ferocious and funny, but slightly unravelled by three long years of destroyed nights.
Life has changed. The films are a little different, and she’s had approximately 100 per cent less sleep. It got to the point, she says, “where it’s like, “Oh, nobody is sleeping in this house”, and you think, “Do we all hate each other, or are we actually completely sleep-deprived?””
While pregnant, she took a year off work. Then she had her daughter and with a four-month-old in tow, the family moved to New York so that Knightley could perform the title role in Thérèse Raquin on Broadway. “I actually don’t know how we did that,” she says, still looking bemused by the decision. “If we have another one I wouldn’t say I’d do that again. It was quite mad.” She remembers little of the time – the eight three-hour shows a week while breastfeeding an infant blurring into a haze. It was only possible at all by hiring a maternity nurse at night, who Knightley paid double what she was earning in the show so that she could rest in order to play the psychotic and murderous Thérèse again the next day. At least, she says, the storm of new-mother hormones and overspilling emotions proved helpful for the role.
I have updated the gallery with photos of Keira attending ELLE’s 25th Annual Women In Hollywood Celebration on Monday night (Oct 15), where she was honored as part of the magazine’s special issue. Inside, she was reunited with her Begin Again co-star, James Corden and Chloë Grace Moretz, who appeared alongside Keira in Laggies. Enjoy the photos!
In addition to the debut of the trailer, we also have our first poster for The Aftermath, which has now been added to the gallery. Be sure to take a look!
I’ve updated the gallery with Keira’s recent appearances at the 62nd Annual BFI London Film Festival, where she promoted Colette–although the film won’t be released in the UK until January. Enjoy the photos!
More Keira coverage! She is featured as one of the cover stars for ELLE’s annual Women in Hollywood issue. Other honorees include Lady Gaga, Charlize Theron, Yara Shahidi, Shonda Rhimes and Sarah Paulson. Along with a beautiful series of black and white photos of Keira, there’s also a short accompanying interview for the feature, which you can read here.
I’ve added two new photos of Keira appearing on Amanpour, hosted by Christiane Amanpour. There’s several clips online from the interview, where Keira discusses mental health struggles in her early 20s and her recent essay on motherhood. Hopefully I’ll be able to share the full video with you soon.
I was meant to be named ‘Kiera’, after a Russian ice skater who was on the TV one day. My dad fancied her and nicked her name for me. But it was my mum who went to register my birth, and she accidentally spelled ‘ei’ instead of ‘ie’ because my mum’s crap at spelling. Apparently, when she came back he said: ‘WHAT THE F*CK? You’ve spelt her name wrong!’ What were they going to do, though? Once it’s on the piece of paper, it’s on the piece of paper. And that’s me. A spelling error.
