Keira on corsets

The Duchess is the new period drama starring Keira Knightley (who else?) and Ralph Fiennes. We attended the press conference to see what director Saul Dibb and cast members Keira Knightley, Hayley Atwell and Dominic Cooper had to say about costumes, corsetry and hilarious sex scenes.

Dibb was dressed casually in a checked shirt. Cooper a smart, dark suit. Atwell a bright white shirt, like a waitress, but it looked good on her. Knightley dressed to the nines in a flowing black dress, plain at the front with great, big ruffles down the back. With her hair and make-up immaculate, it looked like she was going to a glitzy Hollywood party - in the 1930s. Regardless of her appearance, she was reasonably informal, as was the conference…

Much has been made of the parallels between the Duchess and Diana. How conscious was director Dibb of communicating them through the film?

SD: I think it would be naïve to say no one was aware of them. We were trying to make a film about people in their own right, and try and nail their relationships in as true a way as we possibly could

What was it that attracted Keira Knightley to the project?

KK: It wasn’t the book. It was Saul. He sent me a letter with three really big ostrich feathers tied in a really nice, big bow. They were very pretty. I thought, a man who does that, you have to work with him.

There was certainly no shortage of material for Cooper to draw upon, what with him playing Charles Grey.

DC: The was a wealth of material on the back of a Twinings’ tea box! . I was completely unaware that Earl Grey was Prime Minister for four years in our country, but he was a fantastic person to discover and realise how passionate and enthusiastic a young politician he was, and how he was able to put everything on the line for the love of his life.

How helpful was it to shoot in many of the original locations?

Pages: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5