“The Jacket” is generating a lot of talk, not the least of which centers around Keira Knightley’s nude scenes. At a press conference promoting the film, director John Maybury was asked why in one particular scene, Knightley’s character needed to be naked in a bathtub and how he convinced Knightley the scene was integral to the movie. “Well, it is. She’s a tramp. Not Keira, the character. It explains exactly who she is, that she picks up a guy at a truck stop, brings him back to her house and the first thing she does is get her [clothes] off and have a bath and leave him alone in her apartment. It tells you all you need to know about her character. She’s a dissolute drunk. I recognized that behavior,” explained Maybury.
Keira Knightley, the subject of all the talk, showed up at the Los Angeles Premiere of “The Jacket” looking absolutely stunning. Hair cut short and wearing a black Chanel dress with Jimmy Choo shoes, Knightley looked every inch the Hollywood ‘It’ girl. Asked how she chose her outfit for the evening, Knightley laughingly replied, “I haven't got a clue. I just went, ‘Ooh, yes, that looks pretty. I'll wear that. How marvelous!’”
While at “The Jacket” premiere, Knightley described her experience working on the film as intense. Knightley added, “But I think only because we were all really passionate about finding the right characters, the right reality for this kind of movie where you're never quite sure what reality is. I mean, it's important to stay truthful to everything, so yeah, we work really hard. But in the same way, it was one of those experiences that you want to work as hard as you possibly can because it's so gratifying at the end of it, and you come home at the end of the day and you go, ‘Wow, that was an amazing, amazing experience.’"
Though Kris Kristofferson, Jennifer Jason Leigh, and Daniel Craig co-star in “The Jacket,” most of Keira Knightley’s scenes were with Academy Award-winner Adrien Brody. Commenting on her time spent with Brody, Knightley said, “It's fantastic to work with someone who takes their work so seriously, and he absolutely does. He's intense when he works, and that's fantastic because you feel like it sets the tone for the whole set, and everybody's so focused on what they're doing. You know you work with Jennifer Jason Leigh and Adrien together, and it's like an acting master class, so it was just fantastic."
“The Jacket” opened March 4, 2005 and is rated R for violence, language and brief sexuality/nudity.
