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Although it took some time to settle on James McAvoy for the role of Robbie, Keira Knightley says she's been a fan of his work for a while. The two hit it off on the Atonement set. “I think he’s extraordinary. He came in to audition for the part along with some really, really great British actors who were really top notch. And everybody read it wonderfully. And then James came in. Joe [Wright] was very specific about the physical type that he wanted for the role and we’d talked about James before. I knew his work. I thought he was sensational. But physically it wasn’t what Joe had described to me. So, he came in and I’ve never seen a screen test like it. He grew to 6'6". He just morphed. He left the room and we were completely silent for about 10 minutes afterwards and just went, ‘Right, well, that’s him.’”
McAvoy and Knightley did two scenes together during the audition process to find out if the chemistry would work. “We did the fountain scene and we did the Swallows Tea Shop,” said Knightley. “We did those two scenes. I just think he has the rare ability to completely morph into whatever character he’s playing. I think he’s one of the most talented actors around, at the moment. And he really respects what he does, sees it as a craft and hones it. When you watch him, you watch somebody really working at constantly making it truthful and constantly making it better, and finding it really important to be in film and respecting what he does. There’s an incredible integrity to him. He’s also incredibly giving as a partner. It’s very much a collaboration. It’s very much about the company and the team, and about getting the best out of everyone, like Joe Wright is. I think he’s completely phenomenal, and it will be very exciting to see what he does.”
As with most films, scenes had to be snipped from the final cut in order to improve the flow and tighten up the story. Knightley recalls the first cut of the movie didn’t have the emotional impact of the finished film. “Apparently some stuff was taken out of the Dunkirk [scenes] to tighten that up. There was certainly quite a big difference in the film between the first cut that I saw and the final cut. It was really good when I first saw it. It had bits of music, but it wasn’t fully scored and we hadn’t done the sound for it, but it was still a good film. But, nobody cried. You came out and you felt like you had been f--king punched in the stomach, but you didn’t cry. And then I went back to see the final thing and people were crying, pretty much from that moment in the Swallows Tea Shop until the end.”
“It’s incredible how one cut can make the difference between a good film and something that really is tight and really works. It was just Joe going, ‘Wait a minute, I think there’s something else.’ And a lot of it had to do with the ending. Originally, it did have that ending that we first shot, and we actually went back and did a re-shoot, and shot the ending that’s on it now. So I think that that helped a lot… The fact that you only see Vanessa once, for that last scene, I think that’s very powerful. So, yes, there were bits and pieces that were altered, but not hugely. We’re talking very minor things, taken out and put back in. But it made a hell of a difference.”
