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c h i k k a
i n t e r v i e w
Keira Knightley dons period costume once again, this
time to play Anna Karenina in the screen adaptation of
Leo Tolstoy’s classic. Here, she talks about her character,
director and co-stars. By Andrew Stein/Celebritext
I think [Anna Karenina] is
one of the most complex
characters you’ve played.
She is. I think it was weird because I
initially read the book when I was in my
late-teens, early-20s. Back then I saw
Anna as somebody who was a victim and
in the right, and everybody else being
wrong. I read it again just before we did the
film, and all this is not what I remember
at all. This is not the same person that I
remember at all. I saw her as darker, and
questioned the function of the role within
the whole piece. I think because it’s called
Anna Karenina
you expect her to be the
heroine. You expect her to be the one that
Keira gets in
costume for
her fifth period
drama film
you should always sympathize with and
you should be seeing through her eyes.
I didn’t know that that’s the function of
the character within the piece. I thought it
would be more interesting if we looked at
that morally ambiguous side of her.
Is that why you think it still
resonates to this day?
I think it resonates to this day because it’s
about love and not just romance or just
that happy bit. Not love in the way it’s all
sold to us but love as the thing that we’ve
been fascinated and obsessed with for
centuries. Love is that thing that we are all
after and yet can destroy us and is painful.
It can be madness and can be joy and can
be happiness. It looks at the whole thing. I
think that’s why it’s so complex. It has more
questions within it than it has answers. We
never manage to answer the questions.
Love is something that is so inexplicable
and so complex and strange.
I was exhausted by
watching some of the
things you went through.
How did you sustain
yourself through that
emotionally wrenching
process?
It was pretty exhausting. It was a character
like that, particularly because of the way
Dressed
to impress
