Keira Knightley Talks The Woman in Cabin 10’s ‘Nightmare’ & Hannah Waddingham | Interview
ComingSoon spoke with The Woman in Cabin 10 star Keira Knightley and director Simon Stone to learn more about the new Netflix movie. The duo discussed the mystery movie’s unconventional format, Knightley’s character, and the film’s star-studded cast. The movie is now streaming on Netflix.
“While on board a luxury yacht for a travel assignment, a journalist witnesses a passenger thrown overboard late at night, only to be told that it didn’t happen, as all passengers and crew are accounted for. Despite no one believing her, she continues to look for answers, putting her own life in danger,” says the official logline.
Tyler Treese: Keira, nobody believes you in this movie. Your character’s constantly being gaslit. How is it playing not into a sense of total despair, but the strength of Lo and this determination she has to really reach the truth?
Keira Knightley: I mean, yeah. That’s what I liked about her. I think this scenario is a nightmare scenario for most people. You’re standing in the middle of a room, you are telling the truth, and nobody believes you. And add in one person is probably a murderer, you know? I mean, it’s utterly terrifying.
What I loved about her was that I think most people, when this has happened, and everyone says, “No, you’re crazy,” would go, “Oh, I’m so sorry. Yeah, you’re totally right.” The fact that you’ve got a person who’s like, “This is the truth. I know it’s the truth,” and she keeps going and keeps going and keeps going. She’s like a dog with a bone. I found that really compelling.
Simon, I thought this was laid out so interestingly as a mystery. Because a little over halfway through the film, we know who did it. We know what happened, and it moves on to being about how they’re gonna rectify this situation. What did you like about not withholding that mystery till the last arc of the movie and having it a little bit earlier than a lot of mystery stories?
Simon Stone: Because what’s lovely about this is that it’s the notion of righteousness. The relentless pursuit of truth relies on… I mean, it’s fun for the audience to not know what that truth is for a certain amount of time. But in order to get the audience to have the same, to end up relating to the lead character, you need to give them enough evidence at a certain point to make ’em go, “Right. Whoa. What are you gonna do about it?”
Then the fun bit after that is like… how do you make the comeuppance for the villain delicious? And how do you make the lead character that we have purported to be an incredibly intelligent person, be smarter than anyone else in the room? And I think that’s the fun thing, that it’s a victory of the mind and a victory of justice at the end of the movie. I think it requires a lot of work to get it right, and it requires a great performance because, at the end of the day, the film ends with basically a confrontation, a verbal confrontation between the villain and the hero.
For Keira to be able to go from reacting, receiving, reacting, going, “Oh, God, what’s going on?” to being incredibly proactive… It’s a really beautiful character twist.
Keira, as a fan, it’s really thrilling seeing you and Hannah Waddingham just go back and forth. What stood out about her as a scene partner? Because there are some moments where they’re both throwing jabs at each other, and it’s really electric to watch.
Keira Knightley: Hannah’s amazing. I mean, she’s like full wattage. Amazing woman. I’ve been a fan of hers from Ted Lasso. I think she’s amazing, and the person, she’s very funny. She’s very quick, very sparky, so just sort of hanging out with her… She’s like that. She’s the same in a scene. She just throws things at you. She has fun with it. So, yeah, she’s great.
Simon, Guy Pearce is just a standout as he often is. What impressed you the most about just working with him as an actor?
Simon Stone: He’s so diligent. It’s terrifying for me because I like to throw stuff against the wall and see what sticks. Guy’s kind of an auditor that goes, “Nope, we need to check that this works and we need to check that that works, and we need to check.”
It’s really good for me to have someone like that in the room, and I think it’s really good for Keira to have someone like that in the room because the two of us are more like, “Let’s try it. Let’s try it. Let’s try it.” And then he’s the other pole, which is, “If I don’t figure out exactly what I’m doing here, I can’t be free.” So it’s a really good… He’s so incredibly hardworking. Like, it’s unbelievable to watch.
Thanks to Keira Knightley and Simon Stone for taking the time to talk about The Woman in Cabin 10.
Source: Comingsoon.net