Hollywood film star Keira Knightley, 35, speaking during the Chanel Connects podcast on Monday, clarified reasons why she won’t be performing any nude scenes in movies that are filmed by male directors.
"I don’t have an absolute ban, but I kind of do with men. It’s partly vanity and also it’s the male gaze," the actress explained.
The British star acknowledged the importance of nudity and sex scenes in certain storylines, but expressed that she is not interested in participating in “those horrible sex scenes where you’re all greased up and everybody is grunting."
“There’s times where I go, ‘Yeah, I completely see where this sex would be really good in this film and you basically just need somebody to look hot,’ so, therefore, you can use somebody else. Because I’m too vain, and the body has had two children now, and I just rather not stand in front of a group of men naked," Knightley said.
The actress noted that she would agree to a movie about “that journey of motherhood and body acceptance”, made only by a female filmmaker.
“If it was about motherhood, about how extraordinary that body is, about how suddenly you’re looking at this body that you’ve got to know and is your own and it’s seen in a completely different way and it’s changed in ways which are unfathomable to you before you become a mother, then yeah, I would totally be up for exploring that with a woman who would understand that," said Knightley.
The Hollywood star stressed that she feels very uncomfortable “to portray the male gaze” on what an intimate scene in a film should look like.
Last march the actress refused to shoot in nude scenes as her motherhood has changed her view on choosing new roles and what she feels comfortable with in front of the camera.
Knightley is the mother of two girls, 5-year-old Edie and 1-year-old Delilah. After giving birth to her first child she added a "no nudity clause" to her film contract.