If there’s one thing you simply can’t say about Keira Knightley’s career, it’s that it hasn’t had range. From breaking out with the “Pirates of the Caribbean” franchise and “Pride and Prejudice,” to more serious fare like “The Imitation Game,” she’s done a lot. Now, she’s ready to focus on more projects “that audiences are unabashedly entertained by.”
At the moment, that means starring as journalist Laura “Lo” Blacklock in Netflix’s new thriller “The Woman in Cabin 10.” Based on Ruth Ware’s book of the same name — though it makes some key changes — the film centers on Lo as she boards a superyacht to cover a charity event for cancer research. Fittingly, the voyage is almost exclusively attended by the uber-wealthy.
One night, Lo sees a woman go overboard from the next balcony over. But, when she sounds the alarm, she’s informed that every passenger is accounted for, and there was never anyone staying in the cabin next to her, so she must have imagined it.
From there, she’s warned not to rain on the wealthy folks’ parade, and gaslit about the whole saga. But, Lo is absolutely certain of what she saw, and that self-assuredness marked an exciting first for Knightley.
“It was refreshing, because normally within characters, they’re not certain, and actually, that’s what makes them interesting, right?” Knightley explained to TheWrap. “And that’s what makes people interesting. But you suddenly realize, actually that certainty, and that non-questioning is in itself an extraordinary character trait, and actually one that I don’t think that I played before.”
It was a core piece of the character for director Simon Stone, who told TheWrap that “putting narratives out there that can feed into the diminishment of the believability of women is not something I want to be involved with, full stop.” Of course, it’s also a shakeup for the thriller genre in general, which tends to thrive on an unreliable narrator.
For Knightley, making that narrator not only reliable, but also very evidently capable, heightened the “nightmare” of the situation.
“Yes, there’s the gender thing about it, which is women are less believed than men, obviously,” she said. “But even for men, the idea of standing in a room, being certain, telling the truth, and everybody telling you that you’re either insane or lying, it is the stuff of nightmares. Because, you can’t not question yourself, and question your reality, and question everything that’s happening around you, and question every single relationship that you’ve got with every single person.”
Beyond the realness of the situation though, “The Woman in Cabin 10” really marked a bit of fun for the actress, as well as a strategy shift.
“I always wanted to be the man in a ’70s thriller. I mean, who doesn’t want to be like the Warren Beatty role in ‘The Parallax View?’ You don’t want to be the girl in ‘The Parallax View,’ you want to be Warren Beatty in ‘The Parallax View!’” she said with a laugh.
“So I feel like, for me, it’s like my teenage self getting to be Warren Beatty in ‘The Parallax View’ in this, so it’s still that fun of being like, ‘Yeah, I’m the hero!’ and one of those thrillers, and so, that in itself is about play and fun.”
According to Knightley, fun factors into her character choices more these days. She noted that there definitely was a time where she wanted “serious” and “dark” projects, that would force her to “go to the place” mentally and emotionally. And there are still projects that do so.
But leaning into play and fun — with roles like the Sugar Plum Fairy in “The Nutcracker and the Four Realms,” and Elizabeth Swann in “Pirates of the Caribbean” — has always been “liberating” for Knightley.
“I think I am at the moment looking for pieces of entertainment, and looking for things that audiences are unabashedly entertained by, you know?” she said. “And I think that’s maybe because I’m at a point, I’ve got two kids, I can read a lot of very dark scripts. And I do tend to go, ‘I don’t want to go there right now.’”
“I can do the thrillers because there’s an element of fun,” she continued. “And I find them fun, watching them. I love being on the edge of my seat, going, ‘Oh, good. Who did it? Who was the murderer?’ And so being a part of kind of making that, it’s fun.”
With Netflix’s “Black Doves,” which is now in production on Season 2, Knightley gets to a bit of both: dark and fun. And she’s really excited to go back for a second round of playing a spy/assassin.
“I haven’t shaken the kind of ‘Cool! And I get the gun, and I get to do the bits, and I get to be the person that’s fighting! And I win! I’m really good at it, and my cashmere is still perfect, and my hair is perfect afterwards, and nobody notices!’” she said excitedly. “I do think the silliness of that, and the fun of that, is still — I’m very much looking forward to diving back into being a cool spy assassin.”
You can watch TheWrap’s full interview with Keira Knightley in the video above.
“The Woman in Cabin 10” is now streaming on Netflix.
Everything New on Netflix in October