Why Keira ain’t just misbehavin’

MISBEHAVIOUR, the Keira Knightley film about how members of the Women’s Liberation movement disrupted the 1970 Miss World ceremony at the Royal Albert Hall, is being released digitally on Wednesday after its opening last month was stopped due to the closure of cinemas.

Knightley jumped at the chance to make the picture because it afforded a rare chance to work with a predominantly female creative team, led by director Philippa Lowthorpe.

There’s a strong female cast, too, including Gugu Mbatha-Raw as Miss Grenada (the first woman of colour to take the beauty crown), Jessie Buckley, Keeley Hawes, Lesley Manville and Phyllis Logan.

There was no way, though, that Knightley was going to appear in a bathing suit in the movie. ‘The film’s told from the viewpoint of Bob Hope, who was the master of ceremony; the contestants, and the women’s libbers — and I’m one of the libbers,’ Knightley told me just before she began shooting the film.

‘Yes, I’m a protester,’ she said. ‘Because I couldn’t have said anything bad about Cinderella and then been a beauty queen, could I?’ She was referring to a story last year where it was reported that she had banned her daughter Edie, four, from watching the Disney film because she objected to Cinderella needing to be rescued by a man.

She later softened her stance after members of her family urged her to reconsider. But she insisted she wants her daughter to have a progressive upbringing. ‘I’ve taught her to question everything,’ she told me.

Knightley and her husband James Righton celebrated the birth of second child, Delilah, last summer and last month, Knightley finished shooting a dark-themed, as yet untitled Christmas film for director Camille Griffin and producer Matthew Vaughn.

Her co-stars include Matthew Goode, Roman Griffin Davis (Jojo Rabbit) and Sope Dirisu, another real-deal, mega star-in-waiting.