Keira Knightley is a married lady! I kept seeing stories about Keira’s pre-wedding activities last week but I never got around to writing about them because I didn’t think anyone would care that much. It’s not really all that scandalous, you know? Keira dated Rupert Friend for years (and I’m currently in love with Rupert because of Homeland) and then as soon as they broke up, she got with James Righton. James and Keira were together for (I think) less than a year before he popped the question, and this wedding came after a pretty normal amount of time for an engagement. She’s 28, he’s 29. They’re both English. They seem pretty normal. So… I’m actually kind of happy that Keira managed to do all of this without any drama. They got married in France, and the bride wore Chanel (you can see a photo of her dress here).

Keira Knightley is no bridezilla. On Saturday, May 4, the Anna Karenina actress married Klaxons keyboardist James Righton, and according to the Daily Mail, there was little ado over the “I dos.” The couple kept things very low-key, exchanging vows in an intimate ceremony in the south of France before just a dozen or so of their closest friends and family, the Mail reports.

Pictures of the happy occasion show the Oscar-nominated star, 28, leaving the Mazan Town Hall hand-in-hand with her new husband, 29, as guests cheer them into a waiting silver Renault Clio. Knightley — in a simple but elegant short, strapless tulle dress with pink flats, a cropped Chanel jacket, and a daisy-chain garland atop her shoulder-length brown tresses — looks radiant and relaxed.

“It was a very moving ceremony,” an onlooker told the Daily Mail. “Keira looked extremely moved by the whole thing — there were certainly tears of happiness.”

According to the Mail, the newly minted husband and wife will celebrate with a slightly bigger party on Saturday night, at Knightley’s mother’s home a few miles outside Mazan. Righton’s band is expected to perform for the 50 or so guests, rumored to include actress Sienna Miller. The couple also reportedly plan to throw a second bash once they return to Britain.

This is the first marriage for both the Klaxons rocker and the Pride and Prejudice star, who previously dated actor Rupert Friend for five years. Their romance went public in April 2011, when they were photographed kissing in an East London park. A little more than a year later, in May 2012, Righton proposed.

“He can turn into this lovestruck puppy around her,” a mutual pal told Us Weekly last year, adding that the rocker’s friends encouraged him to pop the question. “Honestly, they’re good for each other.”

Speaking about her wedding plans in November, Knightley confessed to being slightly overwhelmed by the whole thing. “The problem is, ever since [the engagement] happened, everyone keeps going…’So when is it going to happen, and what’s the dress like?’” the star told Ellen DeGeneres. “I’m just not one of those girls that’s had the kind of fantasy wedding thing, so we haven’t planned anything, and it’s all quite terrifying.”

“I sort of looked up on the Internet…if you’re getting married, what should you do…” she continued. “I really don’t have a clue. I don’t get what the big deal is. You say ‘I do’…You drink a bit…On the Internet, they keep talking about…There are things like bridal tea parties. I mean, what is a bridal tea party? I’ve never had a tea party in my life.”

“The whole thing is kind of quite confusing, I think,” she confessed.

[From Us Weekly]

What I really like is that she didn’t freak out at all when the UK tabloids pretty much revealed her wedding date and her wedding plans in France. It all seemed very no muss, no fuss. Maybe Keira really is the low-key cool girl that people always claim she is. Anyway, congrats to Keira and James! I hope they last a long time.

Photos courtesy of WENN.

I’ve been back in love with Keira Knightley for the better part of a year now. She seemed to go through a phase – a phase of hating everyone and everything, a phase that involved being surly and kind of full of herself, a phase where it seemed like she was taking herself too seriously. And that phase is over – either Keira just did some growing up, or she developed into a wiser, more interesting person… or something. Whatever happened, she just seems happier and funnier and cooler. I don’t want to say that it’s because of a man, but maybe it is? She got with James Righton more than a year ago and now they’re engaged and planning their future together. Maybe he lightened her up a bit? Anyway, Keira covers the new issue of Marie Claire to promote her new film Can A Song Save Your Life? Keira stars with your boyfriend Mark Ruffalo and your anti-boyfriend Adam Levine. I’m not pleased with this photo shoot, but the interview excerpts are charming:

Knightley on the paparazzi: “They’re not going to get a shot of me falling out of my knickers as I’m coming out of a club.”

Knightley on England’s royal family: “I’m over the moon about the royal baby. But I really can’t mount an argument in favor of monarchy. Is that treason? Do I have to turn in my passport?”

Knightley on her relationship with fiancé, Klaxons keyboardist, James Righton: “I’m not someone who listens to a lot of music. But I get wonderful perspective by being with someone who is less like me than more like me. The way he thinks is something I don’t get. We come at things from totally different angles.”

Knightley on her wedding: “I could have six fake weddings. God, that would be expensive. We’re not really big-wedding types. I don’t need to have all that.”

Putting down roots: “I’m still a traveler,” says the actress, who recently moved from a loft to a reportedly $3.8 million house in London’s East End with her fiancé, Klaxons keyboardist James Righton, 29. “We love it, but it’s not the house. . . I don’t have anything valuable. Everything in our house is designed so you can spill things on it.”

The insecure profession: “My mom [Sharman Macdonald] is a playwright — she was an actress — and my dad [Will Knightley] is an actor, and we managed to go on holidays, but there were periods when they were hugely out of work and wouldn’t know if they could keep the house. It’s a very insecure profession. I’ve always seen it for what it is. So when I started getting work, it’s like this tiny space opened up and I needed to jump in and go with it. It could all go away tomorrow.”

Defining success: “I’m not sure I can define success. I think if I get to the end of my life having hurt as few people as possible, I will be happy, making sure that the people who mean the most to me know they’ve been loved. Success in work, whatever work, will come and go.”

Fashion: “I like the fantasy of fashion… Creating a different person and dressing up like her. Putting on a flowery dress when it’s raining brightens up the world.”

[From Marie Claire]

I love what she says about the monarchy! That’s kind of how I feel about it too – I’m really excited that Duchess Kate is pregnant but I also think the monarchy itself seems like it needs… something. Something to make it more relevant. And that’s “something” that Prince William and Duchess Kate are NOT bringing to the table.

Photos courtesy of Marie Claire.

Jennifer Lawrence appears in the latest New York Times Magazine pictorial, which appears to highlight several of this year’s Oscar hopefuls (along with some assorted past nominees and winners) in a “Hollywood Heroines” issue. In this photo, Jennifer is holding a snake and wearing some more overwrought hair extensions. I’m starting to really resent this hair-extension trend because it’s turning my fabulous JLaw into yet another trend follower, and she’s essentially anything but that in most other aspects.

To accompany the shoot, Jennifer stars in a semi-creepy video called “Wide-Awake” that features her basically going out to water the lawn (in an atypical outfit) and then getting attacked by the garden hose and making friends with a snake. Strange. Here’s the clip:

Yes, this is an “artistic” video but Jennifer seems to be so above talking about “art” and the “craft” in her interviews, so I’d like to see her just kick back and do something unexpected in such a video. Maybe like breakdancing. I think she’s be down with breakdancing. I don’t know. I’m sure that this NYT feature is merely part of her Harvey Weinstein-directed Oscar campaign, and she’s just playing along. Poor girl.

Naomi Watts also appeared in the shoot with blue tears streaking down her face. Beautiful but weird, right?

Naturally, Anne Hathaway is willingly campaigning for her Oscar here. That’s basically all she does these days.

Keira Knightley breaks away from her Anna Karenina (which I still haven’t seen yet) costuming to sit in a bizarro garden. Keira looks lovely but like she cannot figure out the photographer’s plan here. She’s not the only one.

Photos courtesy of New York Times Magazine

These are photos of Keira Knightley at last night’s LA premiere of Anna Karenina. Keira is wearing this absolutely gorgeous Erdem gown. It was custom-made for Keira and it’s beautiful. I wouldn’t think to put her in a pale mint green, but it suits her. I also love that it’s not the same “long-sleeved ball gown with a fitted, lacy/sheer bodice” type of dress that she’s been wearing a lot lately. Now, is this Erdem a little bit too fancy for an LA premiere? Perhaps. But she’s the star and it’s Anna Karenina, you know? I’m trying to include different angles on the dress so you can see it properly.

Anna Karenina is Keira’s third outing with director Joe Wright. They first worked together on an adaptation of Pride & Prejudice, which I loved, and then Atonement, which I hated – although it had nothing to do with Keira. I just hated the story and I think Ian McEwan’s work is vastly overrated. Rotten Tomatoes is currently scoring AK at a 64% by all critics and a 30% by top critics. So… it might be another Atonement. But I still want to see it, if only for the costumes and set pieces. I also think Keira will definitely get a Best Actress nomination at the Golden Globes, and she might even be a contender for an Oscar nomination – just because I think the Academy really likes her, and they like “big” roles.

Photos courtesy of WENN.

Just take this as evidence of how slow it is today, gossip-wise. I’m stretching out Keira Knightley’s Allure cover interview and photo shoot to two posts. To be fair to myself, I did include another interview in the earlier post – it was a nice piece in which Keira talked about how much she sometimes hated the Anna Karenina character, and how she loves that Love, Actually is a Christmas movie. Well, now we’ve got more excerpts from the Allure piece – Keira talking about body image, feminism and about her engagement. She really does seem so breezy these days. No more dark, morose Keira.

Keira on the claims she was anorexic: “The anorexic stuff — all of that — it’s always going to have an impact, so I think it did hit pretty hard. Because you go, ‘Oh, maybe that’s right!’ I knew I wasn’t anorexic, but maybe my body is somehow not right. Or my face is not right. Or the way I speak is not right. When you’re going through a period where you’re really getting a lot of criticism, you go, ‘Maybe all this is right! You just kind of want to hide it all.’”

On feminism: “I am a feminist, but I clearly objectify myself – so that right there is a total contradiction to feminist principles.”

Hitting the wall, and taking time off to travel: “I’d hit a wall and needed to step back in order to learn the things I needed to learn”… But amidst the darkness, she never wanted to abandon her profession: “There’s clearly something in me that goes, No, actually, I know I’ve got something.”

Aging in the spotlight: “It’s very, very hard on women who get older…I can say that when I’m 27, you know. Talk to me when I’m 37.”

The ticking clock: “Acting – it’s not like its offered one day, so it will be offered the next. There’s a little space for you. And when that space appears, you kind of have to jump in because it’s not necessarily going to arrive again.”

On her fiancé, James Righton: “Maybe I’ll be permanently engaged!” She also said, “We’re total opposites.” Music is Righton’s life, but “I know nothing about it,” said Knightley.

She feels lucky: “The people I’ve worked with! Having a successful career! It’s absolutely, totally extraordinary, and I’m incredibly lucky! But….” she said. “There isn’t a ‘but’ really. That was it…. I take that ‘but’ back.”

[From Us Weekly and Allure]

I like this new movement to get younger women to self-identify as feminists. I think Romola Garai made a better case for calling herself a feminist, and I feel like Keira’s self-identification as a feminist is good too. I know what Keira means when she says “but I clearly objectify myself – so that right there is a total contradiction to feminist principles” – but I don’t agree with her. I don’t believe it’s un-feminist to objectify yourself. It can move into that sort of Spice-Girls feminism BS of “it’s empowering to expose my body!” but sometimes a woman DOES achieve empowerment through exposing and objectifying her own body. It’s a complicated discussion!

Photos courtesy of Allure.

Is anyone else surprised by this cover from Keira Knightley? I’m surprised. Usually Keira avoids these kinds of “pants unzipped, blouse undone, lips parted” magazine covers. She looks pretty and different, so I do like it, I’m just surprised that Keira is letting herself be so exposed. Obviously, she covers the December issue of Allure to promote her starring role in Anna Karenina, which I keep forgetting about… but I do want to see. It’s costume p0rn and I do like Keira. We only have a handful of quotes from the Allure piece, but they’re funny:

Keira Knightley has told how Hollywood execs enhance her boobs for film posters. The Pirates of the Caribbean star, who poses topless for Allure’s December 2012 issue with just a small jacket to protect her modesty, normally finds it funny – except when she ended up a pair of saggy breasts.

She said: “They always pencil in my boobs. I was only angry when they were really, really droopy. For [2004 flick] ‘King Arthur,’ for a poster, they gave me these really strange droopy t*ts. ‘A…. I don’t have t*ts anyway and B… they digitally made them, and I thought, ‘Whoaaa!’ It’s my face on that poster. I thought, “Well, if you’re going to make me fantasy breasts, at least make perky breasts.”’

She also told how she has a strict ‘no bottom half’ clause when it comes to getting naked on film.

She told the US fashion magazine: ‘No bottom half! I don’t mind exposing my t*ts because they’re so small – people really aren’t that interested! [But] I think it’s much easier as you get older. You can say, “No.” “Yes.” “No.”

Keira is currently promoting her new movie Anna Karenina, which is release in the UK on September 7 and the US on November 16.

[From The Mail]

I like how self-deprecating she is about her body (and everything else) these days. Just a few years ago, she wouldn’t have been this “light” and funny. She would have moodier, grumpier. Maybe it was Rupert Friend that made her grumpy?

HuffPo also had a good interview with Keira a few days ago – you can read the full piece here, and here are some highlights. I LOVE when she talks about Love, Actually.

In preparing for the film, what did you learn about Anna Karenina as a character that surprised you?
I originally read the book when I was about 19. What was extraordinary was that my memory of the character, from then, was totally different from my perception of her when I re-read it last year before we did the film. I remember her as being incredibly innocent and the victim, and I remember everybody else being hideous and it not being her fault. All of a sudden, I read it again and went, “Oh. Wow.” [Laughs] This was a very different beast and a very different character than I remembered it being. So, that was kind of quite shocking. I had anticipated playing one character and suddenly another one presented itself to me.

Anna is not an anti-hero, per se, but she certainly has a lot of dark shades to her character. Did that aspect of the role excite you?
Absolutely. I think in a lot of modern films, the female characters mainly always have to be likeable. I was really interested in walking the line between making her the heroine and the anti-heroine. I don’t think she is the anti-heroine, but there are certain points within the piece where you do hold her up and go, “I don’t like you and, morally, I have a problem with what you’re doing.” Actually, I think there are certain areas where she’s meant to be condemned, and what was interesting was trying to juggle that with also making her sympathetic and understandable, yet still trying to bring that darker element out. It was one of the great challenges, but it was what made her so exciting to play.

Hollywood is notoriously bereft of strong female characters, yet you seem to find a lot of them to play. Are you very picky with your choices?
I am very picky. And, yes, it is frustrating. But given that I’m not producing and not directing I don’t really have a right to complain. I think it is very difficult to find really interesting roles and there are very few, so I feel incredibly fortunate that this is one [I got to play]. I think, in general, the female audience is a massive one, and actually it’s one that’s rarely really tapped into. Everybody is after that very famous and rather elusive demographic of men, age 18-24. Well, actually, I’m not in that demographic and I want to see women who are complex and strange and people who I can relate to and be terrified of and want to be and all the rest of it. So, I guess, as an actor, that’s what I’m looking for: those people that interest me the most.

On hating Anna: With “Pride and Prejudice,” Elizabeth Bennet is somebody who you love and you’re meant to love. It’s sort of the same with Cecilia Tallis in “Atonement”: As much as she’s a bitch at the beginning and she’s quite icy, you don’t not love her for it. Then you get to Anna and Anna — there’s a real question mark about what you’re meant to feel about Anna. What is her function within the story? It took a lot of discussion. Some days Joe would say, “God, I hate her.” Some days, I’d say, “God, I hate her.”

On ‘Love, Actually’ becoming a Christmas classic: “It’s amazing that it turned that kind of Christmas movie, isn’t it? I don’t think anyone realized it was going to do that. It’s nice. That one and “Bend It Like Beckham” have a life beyond release. It’s an extraordinary thing when people come up and go, “Oh, you know, that’s the thing I watch every Christmas.” It’s a lovely thing. That’s why you make them.”

[Via HuffPo]

I love Love, Actually! And yes, I do watch it every Christmas. These are my Christmas season movies: Die Hard (obviously), Love, Actually, It’s a Wonderful Life (I cry every time too) and A Christmas Story. I’ve seen A Christmas Story so many times that I don’t even need to see it from beginning to end. I just need five minutes of it and I can recall, like, all of the dialogue.

Cover courtesy of Allure, additional photos by Fame/Flynet.

These are some photos from a London event last night. The event was “Chanel: The Little Black Jacket”. There were some decent celebrities at the event, but I just want to talk about Keira Knightley and Sam Taylor Wood (Sam Taylor Johnson?!). First, Keira. She’s wearing Chanel. She looks pretty. Her fiancé was not by her side. There are rumors that Keira will get Karl Lagerfeld to design her wedding gown. Does that make sense to you? I can see Keira being into the Chanel drama and detail for a potential wedding gown, but I feel like Keira becomes less fussy and more hippie about everything as she gets older. Still… a Chanel wedding gown is nothing to sniff at, and if anyone could pull it off, I’m sure it’s Keira. As for her little Chanel outfit here… I really do like it. I like her hair these days too.

And here are photos of Sam Taylor Johnson and Aaron Taylor Johnson at the same event. Sam looks GREAT. Her body really rebounds after having babies, doesn’t it? And I like her Chanel ensemble even more than Keira’s. As for Aaron… I used to be attracted to him. I used to think Sam had scored the Cougar Grand Prize with Aaron – a talented actor, with a great body and a beautiful face. But I have to wonder… was a Aaron kind of a goober this whole time? And by that I mean… is Aaron pretty dorky? I’m getting the feeling that he is pretty dorky.

Photos courtesy of WENN.

Keira Knightley covers the October issue of Vogue Mag. I’ve been waiting for a week to see this pictorial, and it does not disappoint. Mario Testino photographed Keira beautifully and lovingly, and Testino also took some beautiful portraits of Aaron Taylor Johnson and Jude Law too – you can see Vogue’s slideshow here. I’ve included some of what I consider the most beautiful shots of Keira. I don’t particularly care for the cover shot, but I adore the corsetry and period styles that Keira is wearing in the rest of the shoot.

As for the interview – Vogue has released the entire piece here. I’m including some highlights below too. Obviously, Keira is promoting her role in Anna Karenina, and I have to give her some credit – she’s really given a good interview to Vogue.

On her engagement to James Righton: The questions and musings come thick and fast. It’s no longer “I,” she acknowledges, “but that big old ‘we.’ ” Where, for example, will she and Righton spend their first Christmas as a married couple? “I have no idea; it’s a massive question,” she says with semi-seriousness. “My family was just four”—Keira has an older brother, Caleb—“and very simple. Now all of a sudden it’s breaking into different parts. I cannot imagine my mother letting us go.”

Feminism, work and motherhood: And then there are the really big decisions to wrestle with, such as motherhood and work. The feminist debate reignited earlier this year by former State Department director of policy planning Anne-Marie Slaughter, who announced that she was putting the needs of her family ahead of her own career, has obviously struck a nerve with Keira. “I’m glad that the subject is coming up again,” she says. “I remember doing interviews, and people would ask, as if it was a joke, ‘So you mean you are a feminist?’ As though feminism couldn’t be discussed unless we were making fun of it. I don’t want to deny my femininity,” she continues. “But would I want to be a stay-at-home mother? No. On the other hand, you should be allowed to do that, as should men, without being sneered at.”

Taking a break from work: Looking back on her decision to take nine months off, Keira searches for the right words. “I literally had no life outside of acting, and I just wanted to go off and not be ‘on’ all the time, not be photographed, not. . . . ” She pauses, then remembers, laughing. “I once went to the Glastonbury music festival”—practically a rite of passage for every English teenager—“and was completely surrounded by packs of paparazzi the entire time, so I ended up sitting in a trailer, unable to go out.”

Playing Anna Karenina: Keira loved the challenge. “When I reread the book last summer, I went, ‘Oh!’ It’s not a romance at all. I don’t think that Tolstoy is saying this is what you should do for love; quite a lot of the time he is saying the reverse. He hates Anna at certain moments. She is both a villain and a heroine. She can be incredibly vain and manipulative. She is somebody who breaks her own moral code, and yet the shame and disgust she lives with because of that make her fascinating.”

She doesn’t need to play the heroine: “I think a lot of people want to play heroic characters, and that’s it,” she says. “But I don’t find that very compelling. It’s far more interesting to think about characters whose actions don’t always make sense. The fact is, the opposite is always alive in every decision. And if you look at your own life, and the way you’ve behaved and thought, it won’t always make sense either.”

[From Vogue]

Keira is 27 years old now – and she’s been incredibly famous for a decade. I think she sounds extraordinarily sane and down-to-earth, much to her credit. I’ve kind of fallen in love with her all over again, if truth be told. Sigh… now I really can’t wait to see Anna Karenina. SO excited!

Photos courtesy of VOGUE/Mario Testino.

Ah, premiere photos! I was wondering how this fall and winter could compete with The Summer of Gossip, and these pics remind me of why fall is my favorite time – all of the big awards-season hopefuls come out to play, and it’s a great time for premieres and fashion and big red carpet moments. These are photos from last night’s UK premiere of Anna Karenina, which many hope will be one of the first big awards-season attention-getters. It helps that Keira Knightley has joined up once again with director Joe Wright, a much-celebrated collaboration which has previously yielded Atonement (which I hated) and Pride & Prejudice (which I loved). Wright has filled out the Karenina cast with actors like Jude Law, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Matthew Macfadyen, Emily Watson and on and on. It looks good!

Anyway, back to the fashion. In this post, I’m just going to be discussing Anna and Alexei, otherwise known as Keira and Jude Law. Keira wore this pale pink Chanel gown which… ugh. No, now, I don’t hate it completely. I want to fool with the design, make the skirt more flow-y and less like a bell. I want the sheer part of the top to be cut a different way too. So… yes, this is not my style at all, but I “get” that Keira loves her lace and her super-feminine, cake-looking gowns, so I will accept this. It’s not terrible. It’s just her taste.

But can we talk about Jude Law for a second? Dear God, he looks GREAT. What has been doing? What’s changed? Is it the power of a new rug? Maybe some new plugs? Or has his hairline not been enhanced at all? Did he just get a good night’s sleep and maybe a really great facial? And together with Keira… my, they make such an attractive couple. If Jude was a little bit younger and Keira was a little bit older, I would say that these two might have had a really powerful connection. Keira likes ‘em pretty, and Jude likes ‘em small. It would have been a match made in heaven.

Shall we watch the trailer again?

Photos courtesy of WENN.

Keira Knightley covers the September issue of Harper’s Bazaar UK to promote her starring turn in the upcoming Anna Karenina, in which she’ll get her Russian tragedy on. The shoot itself (from the shots that have been revealed thus far) is absolutely gorgeous in its dark, neo-goth appeal and was photographed by Ellen Von Unwerth. In the magazine’s words, Keira has been transformed into “a modern-day Guinevere,” and she embraced the idea “with gusto.” Keira is definitely one of the only actresses out there that can successfully pull off burgundy-colored lipstick, and I just want to wrap myself up in the sumptuousness of this shoot.

In the cover shot itself, Keira is wearing Chanel, and according to Harper’s, Keira talks a lot in the interview about her relationship with Chanel and Karl Lagerfeld as well as the importance of girlfriends. In the sparse excerpts that have been revealed thus far, however, we get to hear what Keira thought of her Anna Karenina co-stars, Jude Law and Aaron Johnson. She seems quite impressed by Aaron’s acting skills, and there’s a funny way that she dances around the fact that the filmmakers really uglied up Jude for his role as Alexei Karenin:

On working with Jude Law: “No wonder he kept that hat on. [The make-up and wig] were the worst. Poor f&#*er. I’d get to the end of the day, take my make-up and wig off, and I’d look s&*t. He’d take the make-up and wig off and look f&#*ing brilliant. And everyone would say, ‘Oh yeah! Good-looking man underneath!’”

On working with Aaron Johnson: “He is very confident. But he’s also got whatever it is, and I’m never sure quite what it is that makes an actor good, but he’s got it. It’s real. It’s a really interesting thing. If you asked him about his preparation or anything like that, I’m not quite sure what the answer would be – he’s a total wing-it, but he absolutely pulls it off. You sort of stand there and go, ‘Wow, I don’t know how you’ve done it, but you’ve really, really done it.’ It was amazing to watch.”

[From Harper's Bazaar UK]

This probably seems rather crude of me to say, but I really love that Keira, who looks like such a proper type of woman, has a weakness for slightly obscene speech. I also can’t wait to see the rest of the shoot, which will spread over an 11-page feature. Keira looks bloody brilliant here (note to Katy Perry: this is how you go for a goth vibe), and major props to the stylist of this shoot.

Photos courtesy of Harper’s Bazaar