Knightley Offers ‘Arthur’ Fans a Feisty Guinevere
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Watch out, King Arthur! This is a new Guinevere for a new kind of audience.
“King Arthur,” the movie based on historical accounts of a real Arthur who helped save ancient Britain from being overrun by invading Saxons, opened in North America on Wednesday.
The film is set before Arthur is king or Guinevere is queen, and in place of the familiar characters from romantic tales of Camelot come a host of new ones including a younger Guinevere.
Gone are her songs and conflicted passions, and in their place is a warrior princess, portrayed by 19-year-old British actress Keira Knightley, who girds herself in leather bands and body paint, tempting a reluctant Arthur into fighting for his crown and leading him into battle.
Knightley’s Guinevere knows what she wants, knows how to get it, and sex is not necessarily her weapon of choice.
“As a moviegoer today, what I want to see is strong women,” Knightley told Reuters in a recent interview. “I don’t want to see a woman who is totally the plaything of all the guys and who sits back while they do all the action.”
This new Guinevere does all her sword fighting and arrow flinging in a tight-fitting leather bikini, giving fans of the traditional queen a chance to poke fun at just how accurate her version can be. But Knightley has a defense already planned.
“It would have looked pretty stupid if I’d turned up at the (battle) in full armor. You would have said, ‘Where did she get all of that from?,”‘ she said.
She said the original costuming called for her to wear something akin to the men’s battle dress, but she wouldn’t have it. Ancient Celtic legends that the sight of a woman’s body could stop a warrior helped support her, historians said.
GUINEVERE’S NEW TRICKS
“They learned every dirty trick in the book, and invented some new ones,” historian and film advisor John Matthews said of the women of 5th Century AD, when “King Arthur” is set.
The story is based on a blend of history and legend, and it centers on a half-Roman, half-Briton leader named Lucius Artorius Castus who led a band of Sarmatian warriors fighting for the Roman Empire. The soldiers battled Celts in the north of the British Isles as Rome began to retreat.
In the movie, Arthur’s band is sent on a mission to save a Roman boy as another invading force, the Saxon, descends. When they find the Roman family, they also discover a captive Briton, Guinevere.
They save her, and she turns Artorius Castus from a warlord battling Britons and their leader, Merlin, against invading Saxons. In this “King Arthur,” after an epic battle Artorius Castus becomes a king of Britons and the legend is born.
By the reckoning of producer Jerry Bruckheimer (“Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl”), Knightley’s “feisty” nature fits this new Guinevere like a leather glove.
He cast her as a co-star in “Pirates,” which proved to be her breakout role in the U.S. after years of work on British television and a leading part in 2003 independent film success, “Bend It Like Beckham.”
She says she has been protected by the crush of press and paparazzi this past year by keeping busy and working non-stop.
“It has been pretty easy to be a bit blind to a lot of that,” she said, but adds she is getting “a bit tired” of the gossip about this boyfriend or that.
“Most of it is untrue, anyway. It’s entertainment for other people, but reading stuff about (myself) is not what entertains me,” she said.
And if audiences don’t buy her brand of an entertaining Guinevere, and her rising star falls fast, Knightley seems unfazed. “At least I can safely say I had a good run while it lasted,” she said, sounding like a true showbiz warrior.
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