Keira Knightley on making ‘conscious’ decisions to work with women directors

Hollywood A-lister Keira Knightley makes a conscious effort to bring about equality in the film industry by seeking projects helmed by women directors.

The 34-year-old Pride and Prejudice actor during an interview went into discourse over her upcoming film Misbehaviour, directed by Philippa Lowthorpe, while also shed light on her stance on the lack of female representation in Hollywood’s filmmaking scene.

Having worked with ace directors Lynn Shelton, Gurinder Chadha and Lorene Scafaria, Knightley said: “It has always been a conscious thing, but it’s only ever been because I’ve really liked the projects they’ve been making.”

“I haven’t gone like, ‘Ooh there is a project by a guy but I’m not going to do it because it’s a man’,” she said, adding: “It’s been an added bonus that it’s been a woman and I have always tried to seek out female filmmakers whose work I love and I want to work with, so I feel very lucky that I’ve worked with the women that I have.”

“I think it’s an interesting time right now. I can’t talk for the whole industry but I can say that, OK, the last film that I did, which was this one, was directed by a woman, Phillipa. The next one that I’m doing is directed by a woman and I’m in negotiations for another by a woman,” she said.

“And that’s not me going, ‘I will only work with female directors’, I think it’s as an industry it feels very much like everybody is trying to go, ‘Wait a minute, we haven’t given people the opportunities that other people have been given and that needs to be addressed’,” she continued.

Knightley’s upcoming film Misbehaviour brings to light the tale of real-life feminist activists who in the 1970s had plotted to demonstrate at the Miss World contest in London.