Keira Knightley says she won't shoot nude scenes with male directors anymore

Actress Keira Knightley is no longer interested in doing sex scenes just to appeal to men, she said, calling her no-nudity decision partly a result of having two children.

But if a female director was behind the camera, that might be a different matter, the Pirates of the Caribbean star said in a podcast.

“I feel very uncomfortable now trying to portray the male gaze. Saying that, 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',” Knightley said in a conversation with director Lulu Wang in a Chanel Connects podcast.

“So therefore you can use somebody else, because I’m too vain and the body has had two children now and I’d just rather not stand in front of a group of men naked,” she added.

The British actress, 35, added a no-nudity clause to her contract after having children, saying she was more vocal now than she had been as a breakout star in her early 20s in movies like Pride and Prejudice and Atonement.

“If I was making a story that was about that journey of motherhood and body acceptance, I feel like, I’m sorry, but that would have to be with a female film-maker,” Knightley said. “I don’t have an absolute ban, but I kind of do with men.”

“I don’t want it to be those horrible sex scenes where you’re all greased up and everybody is grunting. I’m not interested in doing that,” she added.

Knightley gave birth to her second child with musician James Righton in 2019.