TORONTO – Keira Knightley hates the fact that the release of “A Dangerous Method” will probably lead to a flurry of Google searches for “Keira Knightley nude” and “Keira Knightley spanked.”
It’s not the first time the 26-year-old English actress has shot a sex scene, and in 2008 she told reporters that she didn’t mind appearing nude for the right role.
But while there will always be actors willing to disrobe for a film – either because they have no reservations about it, or feel compelled to do so to land a part – some, like Knightley, are becoming increasingly wary of onscreen nudity, knowing the images will be catalogued and archived online forever.
“It’s not like doing it in the ’60s or ’70s – when I think you could do things and they were kept to the medium they should be kept to – now you’ve got people who want to take them out of any kind of context,” Knightley said during a recent interview.
“If you watch the films at the moment I think there are less and less actresses who are taking their clothes off, who are doing scenes like that, and completely understandably because there is all of a sudden a whole other side of it that you do have to think of.”
But even Knightley is prepared to make the odd exception, as have several other major stars with films at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival.
From Michael Fassbender’s full frontal nudity in “Shame,” to a decidedly unsexy public shower scene in “Take This Waltz” and the symbolic nudity in “Melancholia,” there’s no shortage of festival flicks that feature prominent uncensored views of the human form.
In the case of “A Dangerous Method,” about the birth of psychoanalysis spearheaded by Carl Jung, his mentor Sigmund Freud and the largely unknown pioneer Sabina Spielrein, Canadian director David Cronenberg envisioned a sadomasochism scene as crucial to the understanding of Spielrein’s relationship with Jung.
Knightley relished the chance to work with Cronenberg and adored the script for “A Dangerous Method,” but had “huge reservations” about sex scenes with co-star Fassbender.
It took a lot of talking with Cronenberg before she finally agreed to take on the role – and take off her clothes for it.
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“I actually kind of thought about turning it down right at the beginning,” Knightley recalled.
“And (Cronenberg) said, ‘OK, well it’d be a real tragedy if you turned the part down so we’ll take the scenes out, we don’t have to shoot them.’
“And I went, ‘No, no, because I think it’s incredibly important that they were there…. And we talked about it and talked about it and once he said, ‘I don’t want this to be sexy, I don’t want it to be voyeuristic, I want it to be clinical … so you absolutely understand what her character is,’ I said, ‘OK, that makes sense to me and I can do that.'”
For his part, Cronenberg said he really was willing to compromise.
“I said to Keira, ‘It’s your comfort level … we could do (the spanking scene) with total clothing on if we needed to,’ and so we just had a very heart-to-heart talk on what she’d be comfortable with and what she wouldn’t,” he said.
“I say comfort, well, I’m sure she wasn’t totally comfortable. But she was really willing to give that to the movie and so it was a very straightforward discussion. It was nothing like me forcing anything, it was a collaboration.
“I wanted Keira in the role, if she said, ‘I will not do any nudity,’ I would’ve still wanted her in the role.”
While Cronenberg believes it’s not a new problem, he agrees the Internet has made it more uncomfortable for actresses – and actors, he notes – to go nude in films.
“When Viggo Mortensen was doing the nude fight scene in ‘Eastern Promises’ that was an issue, absolutely,” he said.
“It’s definitely tricky, and although I think it’s not unprecedented – there are nude photographs of Sophia Loren from her early movies and so on, so it’s not a new problem – it’s accelerated and accentuated by the Internet.”
For some actors and actresses, the concern is more about looking good naked, Cronenberg added.
“Obviously everyone is worried about what their body looks like and actors are very well aware of what they consider to be their own flaws and stuff, there’s always that,” he said.
“But most actors at a certain point in their career say, ‘You know, I would do some nudity in this role.'”
Kirsten Dunst considered the downsides but eventually agreed to appear fully nude in the end-of-the-world drama “Melancholia” based on the vision of director Lars von Trier and her trust in him.
“I know that if I do nudity in a film it’s going to be online all over the place but I did it, it looks beautiful and it’s a Lars von Trier film, it’s fine,” Dunst said.
In one unsexy scene, a distraught, naked Dunst is helped into a bathtub by her sister. In another scene, Dunst is seen again fully naked laying outside and gazing up at the sky.
“It’s her connection with the planet in such a beautiful, intimate way. And I knew how it was going to be shot – it’s like a painting – I knew I felt comfortable with it,” Dunst said.
“But I also know in certain films when I’ve seen nudity where I felt like it was totally inappropriate, or just felt cavalier…. Boobs and comedy are not funny to me, especially if you’re the lead actress you should not show your boobs, I don’t think.
“Boobs aren’t funny, they’re just not.”
Fassbender said it was his total trust in director Steve McQueen that convinced him to disrobe for “Shame,” about a man struggling with sex addiction.
“I said to (McQueen), ‘Look, do whatever you need to do. Let’s not even sort of talk about it.’ It’s whatever is required. I trust him so implicitly and I know that he’s not going to exploit this material that we’re dealing with,” Fassbender said.
“There’s a lot of nudity, and of course sexual activity (in the film), but it’s not exploitative and it’s not done in a titillating fashion, it’s done to tell the story…. it’s just a matter of getting on with it.”
“A Dangerous Method” hasn’t even hits theatres yet but audiences are already getting a glimpse of Knightley’s sex scenes, courtesy of the film’s revealing trailer. But Knightley wasn’t upset to see that her racy scenes were being flogged by marketers to drum up interest in the film.
“It’s Freud and Jung, it is about sex, the whole film is about sex, and I’m equally and completely aware that that is what sells,” she said.
“This is my job, I love film, I really wanted to work with David and part of working with David in the style of David’s filmmaking is it’s quite explicit.
“You have to accept that. If you don’t want to, that’s fine, don’t do it.”
The Toronto International Film Festival wraps Sunday.
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