MONTHS of being sewn in and out of 18th-century corsets have clearly taken their toll on Keira Knightley.

The 23-year-old arrives to meet eager journalists in what looks like a full-length frilly black nightie.

Keira clearly learned one thing from portraying infamous 18th-century socialite Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, in her latest film The Duchess – that she needs to take full advantage of her modern right to breathe.

“The costumes were completely fantastic because Georgiana was a very famous fashion icon. But they weren’t particularly comfortable,” she says frankly. “In a corset you can’t catch your breath. It means your emotions are heightened because you can’t calm down.”

Considering she plays an aristocrat whose glamorous, yet tragic, life has led her to be compared with the late Princess of Wales, this was not such a bad thing. Author Amanda Foreman is largely responsible for bringing the duchess’ life back into the spotlight, thanks to a biography she wrote in 1998.

Details about her husband’s infidelity, her trend-setting outfits, affair with the future Prime Minister Lord Grey and eventual menage-a-trois with her husband and former best friend Lady Bess Foster, proved sensational reading and the book was an instant hit.

The film version stars Knightley along with Ralph Fiennes as the Duke, Dominic Cooper as her lover Lord Grey and Hayley Atwell as Bess.

Although the film’s producers are hoping that linking Diana, Princess of Wales, with her great-great-great-great- aunt Georgiana will help attract large audiences, Keira says she didn’t play on the connection.

“I was 11 when Diana died. I knew when I was going into it that she was a distant relation but that’s as far as my knowledge went. I was making a film about Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, and I think she’s an interesting enough person to warrant a film about her, without comparison.”

The beautiful and charismatic Georgiana was married at 17 to the Duke of Devonshire – a man more interested in sleeping with the maids and playing with his dogs than his new wife – and for many years was unable to bear him an heir.

Her husband ignored her as a result and her dreams of a fairytale life gradually died. But despite her personal problems, the young duchess won the heart of English society, and only the Duke seemed immune to her appeal.

“I first heard about the film when the director sent me a letter with three really big ostrich feathers tied with a big bow,” says Keira. “They were very pretty and I thought I have to work with a man who does that.”

The feathers were a nod to one of Georgiana’s more flamboyant and original head-dresses which helped turn her into one of the most talked about women of her time.

“When I read the script the first thing that struck me was how incredibly lonely this woman was,” says Keira.“She was constantly surrounded by so many people and yet entirely alone. I think she just tried to grab on to any kind of love and attention that she could possibly get.”

Naturally enthusiastic and intelligent, Georgiana became involved in politics and eventually fell in love with the future Prime Minister, Lord Grey. But despite having to accept her husband’s mistress in a humiliating and extremely public menage-a-trois, her love for Grey was forbidden by the Duke.

“The whole journey for her is one from idealism to reality – she gets broken down. She couldn’t have lived with herself if she’d gone off with Grey and given up her kids. I don’t know if it has a happy ending but I think that she survives and that can only be positive.”

Although the 18th-century paparazzi at that time constituted a bunch of talented cartoonists, as one of the most powerful, beautiful and controversial ladies in the land, the Duchess’ life was still the subject of endless gossip column inches and public speculation.

“The current Duchess of Devonshire showed me some of Georgiana’s things. She was a huge gambling addict, so it was amazing to see her books of debts written in her own hand,” Keira says.

As well as her love of cards and extravagant shopping, the Duchess liked to socialise with society’s opinion makers.

The public adored her unique combination of intelligence and wilful self-destruction.

Keira admits that playing the Duchess wasn’t easy.

“It was completely terrifying. It’s very rare to get a role like that, so when it comes along and you get the opportunity to play it, it’s phenomenal and terrifying.”

Although she had a lot on her plate, Keira did let her hair down occasionally during filming – but not literally, as the authentic 18th-century headdresses needed to be painstakingly unpinned.

“During the sex scene with Grey I was luckily fully clothed but he got to wear a skin coloured nappy. On set, you’re supposed to be supportive of each other but when he came out I completely lost it!”

Having played such a wonderful role, does she hope more similar projects will come along?

“Recently I do seem to be getting sent books and ideas for stronger female characters, which is completely fantastic. I think if people go and see films about strong women, there’ll be more made and if they don’t, there won’t. It’s up to the public.”

The Duchess is out on Monday

Maybe it’s because we normally see her in pretty dresses and bonnets, speaking so exquisitely crisply, that it feels strange, paradoxical even, to be sworn at by Keira Knightley. Like a spurt of Special Brew from a fine Wedgwood teapot. Can she really have just told me to fuck off? When all I asked was who she went on holiday with?

But it’s not long before the next one. In the hour I’m in Knightley’s company, she tells me to fuck off six times. She uses the c-word, too. Sorry, yes, this is an 18-rated interview and contains strong language from the start - a bit late for that, I know…

Knightley has a new film out, about which more later. We are sitting in a posh London hotel where she drinks green tea, and sits, like a cat, in the middle of an impossibly plumped-up sofa cushion. There is something quite feline about Knightley. When we talk about her work, she purrs. No, not literally - that would be weird - but she speaks easily, and appears content and relaxed. When I attempt to steer the conversation towards her life outside work, the claws come out. In a very good-natured, playful way, it has to be said. At times the interview feels like a sparring match, and she gives as good as she gets, if not better. She’s very entertaining company, and it’s fun - trying to get under the guard of Keira Knightley.

This will sound like the tragic fantasy of a male journalist who has fallen under the spell of a very pretty young lady and somehow imagines he could be her friend, but although she does speak awful proper, there is something nicely unstarry about her. Perhaps it’s being sworn at, but I’m finding it hard to remember that I am talking to the second highest-paid actress in Hollywood last year, although there seems be some debate about exactly how much she made.

“According to Forbes magazine, I earned 32 million last year,” she says, though she can’t remember if it’s dollars or pounds (it’s dollars).

Is that not true? “Unfortunately, no.”

How much did you earn? “Fuck off.”

She says that money is not important beyond being comfortable, that she owns her own flat “somewhere in London”, and she mentions a new sofa. When I ask how much the sofa was, I get the inevitable (and probably well-deserved) “fuck off”.

She doesn’t want to talk about politics much, because she doesn’t feel confident talking about it, though when I ask what she votes, she says, “My dad was a founder member of a leftwing theatre company, I went to a comprehensive - what do you think?”

Her father is an actor, her mother is a playwright, and young Keira was brought up in Teddington, west London. How posh does that make her, I wonder. “People from the Guardian and Observer always want to know that, it’s weird,” she replies. “Why are you so obsessed with poshness? Somebody from the Observer asked me why I don’t have a cockney accent, seeing as I went to a comprehensive school.”

It seems a reasonable question, so what’s the answer? “Not everyone who goes to comprehensive school has a cockney accent. I think I probably did have more of an estuary accent. Coming from Teddington, it’s more estuary. Cockney is more east London.”

Do an estuary accent then. “No.”

American then. “No.”

Can she do an Indian accent? “Not today, no. Fuck off.”

But she’s an actor. “You’re an actor, so act [Oi, she's stealing my lines]. Give me a script then.”

The new film is called The Duchess, and Knightley is excellent in the lead. It’s about a late-18th century “It girl” called Georgiana Spencer, Di’s great-great-great-great aunt. There are obvious parallels between their two lives, though Knightley wasn’t immediately stuck by them, mainly because, as she says, she was only 11 when Diana died (she’s 23 now).

Georgiana marries a cold fish played, also excellently, by Ralph Fiennes, who is really, really horrid to her. It gets more complicated when Georgiana’s best friend, Bess, moves in, and they live as a joyless ménage à trois. Georgiana finds some solace in an affair with young politician Charles Grey, but has to stop seeing him in order not to lose contact with her children. It’s a story of female repression, but also of female strength and survival. It’s also a story about public adoration versus private misery (see what I mean about those parallels?).

Even though Knightley is too young for Diana to have made much of an impact on her life, the difference between a person’s public facade and what’s going on inside is something that seems to preoccupy her. “The way you can have extremely strong people who actually in private are completely breaking down. Everyone does it - presents a front that is actually… No one can ever know what’s going on emotionally inside.”

Is there anything of this, of Georgiana, in her? “Am I very lonely, and terribly trapped, and all the rest of it? No, I don’t particularly look for characters that are like some kind of biography of myself, no.”

It’s a role she didn’t find easy. “I wasn’t particularly confident about it, which I think actually helped - because I don’t think that confidence is always a very helpful thing. I really found it very difficult to get a grasp of her.”

This lack of confidence is something that seems to lurk beneath the alabaster facade. When I ask if she thinks she’ll win an Oscar for this role, as well as saying she doesn’t think she will because it’s what’s known as a “big year” in the business, she also says, “I’d probably shit myself if I had to give a speech.”

Is she often unconfident about her parts? “There’s always an element of fear that you’re not going to be able to make people believe in the fiction, that suddenly you’re going to be standing there in your dress and wig, and feel like a complete wanker. Which is not particularly helpful.”

It is not surprising that she mentions wigs and dresses, because a role for Knightley generally involves her putting on one, or both, of those. This has happened by accident rather than by design, she says. “I think I’ve simply read better characters in period pieces than I have in contemporary, which is a pity. I don’t know why that is. But I haven’t been kind of going, ‘I really want to do another period film.’ I’ve just been led by what scripts I’ve thought were good, and what film-makers I thought were good.”
Keira Knightley in Bend it Like Beckham Breakthrough … Bend It Like Beckham. Photograph: Kobal

Knightley knew she wanted to act pretty much from the moment she knew anything at all. Famously, she wanted an agent at three, got one at six, and was making TV appearances by the age of 10. Her big breakthrough was the low-budget British film Bend It Like Beckham in 2002, after which she found herself alongside Orlando Bloom and Johnny Depp in camp, big-budget action blockbuster Pirates Of The Caribbean: The Curse Of The Black Pearl. Suddenly, the skinny little girl from Teddington was a major, if unlikely, Hollywood star.

While it may be the Pirates franchise that has brought in those millions (however many there are), Knightley is more serious about acting than to be happy simply being a damsel in distress. She’s done the odd thriller and action film, which have slipped by comparatively unnoticed, but it’s with country houses and the past that she is most associated - Pride & Prejudice, Atonement, now The Duchess. It’s what Britain exports well, she says, and it isn’t hard to find modern relevance under a bonnet. “I don’t think we’ve really changed that much in our essence.”

I’m wondering if that’s it, and whether we’ve seen the full range yet. “Of?”

You. “As an actress? I hope not. It would be quite sad if I said yes. I’ve only been making films for the past five years. You change as a person all the time. And so therefore the way you perceive the world and situations, and the way you portray characters, is going to change. I think that’s the aim.”

Critics of Knightley say she is wooden and expressionless, though they’ve been less vociferous since Pride & Prejudice and Atonement. But the criticism is not just about her acting - she seems to generate more loathing, almost exclusively from women, than any actor deserves. I’ve brought along an example, a newspaper column (OK, it’s from the Guardian). “Oh great,” she says. “You’re not actually going to quote me something really shitty that someone’s said, are you?” Well, I wouldn’t have, but she’s been so totally cool, and unfazed, and also to show that I haven’t fallen totally under the pretty-lady spell, so yes, I am…

“If you want to befriend a woman, ask her the question, ‘What do you think of Keira Knightley?’ In the resulting torrent of bile and loathing, you will bond.”

“Well, I’m doing a good thing for women all over the country, then,” she says. “I think that’s a very positive thing.”

Why do so many women hate you? “I don’t know,” she sighs. “Maybe you should ask the woman who wrote it. I think if you put yourself in the public forum, then that’s what you put yourself up for, I guess. I don’t think I need to read it. I have friends.”

Who likes you? “I’m a shit person and no one likes me,” she says. “I’m an absolute cunt.”

It’s quite shocking. Also very funny. Sarcasm is probably the best possible way to respond to what I’ve just read to her. Again, she wins the point. (And, to be fair, the columnist goes on to admit that Knightley can act. And the real reason that she - and a lot of others - hate her is that she is thin.)

“I think manipulation is something that women do a lot, it’s still our number one problem,” she says. “You look at those characters [in The Duchess] - Georgiana and Bess - and they’re hugely trying to outmanoeuvre each other, but I think it’s also possible for intense love affairs to happen between women - not necessarily sexual, but things can obviously take a sexual turn. Women do get obsessed with other women - whether they love them or hate them, and I think that line is very easy to cross.”

The anorexia thing is perhaps the only one that does get Knightley’s goat, in public, anyway (Lord knows what gets her private goat). Last year she sued the Daily Mail over suggestions that she’d lied about being anorexic. The paper ran a picture of her alongside a story about a girl who died of the disorder. “Someone saying you have a mental illness is obviously rather difficult to take, and particularly when they’re blaming you for killing someone,” she says. “I am skinny. I’ve always been skinny.”

There is one “exia” she does admit to, however: dyslexia. She was slow to learn to read, got letters and numbers the wrong way round, and was diagnosed when she was six. Through support and tutors, and lots of help from her mum, she largely overcame it, and by the time she went to secondary school she didn’t need extra help, or more time in exams or anything like that.

She admits she’s still a crap speller, though. So I ask her to spell February. “You can’t do that to somebody,” she says (and it occurs to me that challenging someone who has just told you they are dyslexic to spell something is perhaps a bit wrong). But she spells it, correctly, though she makes the sounds of the letters rather than saying their names, much as a child would. Licence next. “Are we actually going to do a spelling test?” she asks, then puts her foot down. “I’m not going to.”

She regrets not having been to university, has even said she would like to go some time. But that’s not really going to happen, is it? It would be a bit hard, for a movie star, freshers’ week and all that? “Right now, it would be hard, yes. I could do Open University.” She’s not sure what she’d study, though - for the time being, she’s happy with what she’s doing. And at the moment, she says, she’s not doing much. There’s a possibility of playing Cordelia in a new King Lear film, but she’s not sure whether or not that will happen. For the time being she’s unemployed.

What does it involve, being an unemployed movie star? What does she do? Well, yesterday she read a book - Emma’s War, by Deborah Scroggins, about a woman who goes to Sudan and falls in love with a military reader there. And she watched a lot of The Wire. And in the evening she got an Indian takeaway - chicken tikka jalfrezi and dhingri mutter - peas and mushrooms. Mmmm. Washed down with a bottle of Cobra. While watching more of The Wire, which is “absolutely brilliant”.

Alone, were you? “Fuck off,” she says.

The Duchess is released next Friday.

This a story about how a skinny little girl became a box-office heavyweight.

Keira Knightley, 23, may be the poster child for the slim and flat-chested, but while the world was speculating upon what she does or doesn’t eat, the actress was busy working her way to big, fat success.

According to Forbes, the star of Pirates of the Caribbean and Atonement is currently the second highest-paid actress of the day and the only non-American on the list of wildly successful thespians. Cameron Diaz is the only female who out-earns her. Last year, Knightley pulled down $32 million. Who you calling undernourished now?

Knightley is coming to Toronto in the next few days to take part in the 33rd annual Toronto International Film Festival, this time for the costume epic, The Duchess. The film concerns Georgiana Spencer, the Duchess of Devonshire, and is based on the best-selling biography by Amanda Foreman.

Georgiana was a larger-than-life character, an 18th century socialite and political figure at a time when a lady was meant to be neither. She was hugely well known and celebrated, but her personal life was tragic.

The film is getting huge advance buzz, and it’s already spawned a bit of controversy in England, where a misleading trailer attempts to connect the life of Georgiana to that of her great-great-great-great niece, Diana Spencer, the Princess of Wales. The movie has nothing at all to do with the late Diana, and both Knightley and Foreman are said to be cross about the misleading advertisements. Knightley is quoted in the Telegraph as follows: “I am Georgiana. I am not Diana. The film is not about Diana.”

That’s clear, then.

There are some parallels between Georgiana and Knightley, however, the most obvious being the Duchess’ celebrity status in her day. The Duchess was endlessly observed, imitated, written about and captured in paintings.

Over the phone from England, in an exclusive interview for Sun Media, Knightley says, “The idea that she was constantly being watched, and was never alone, and yet was so lonely, is something I find very interesting. I’m fascinated that you can make a period piece, set 300 years ago and set in a society that yes, has some similarities to today, but was really very different from the one we live in, and yet you can still completely sympathize with what’s happening and understand what she’s going through. I think human emotions haven’t changed that much.”

As for her own life under the microscope of celebrity, she says, “It’s very difficult. It’s something that’s taken a lot of getting used to, if I have got used to it. It can make you feel incredibly trapped. Equally, I’m incredibly lucky,” she adds, sounding plucky. “I’m doing a job I really really love doing, and I am fortunate enough to be able to help get films made that I think are worth it. So that’s obviously amazing, but there are always going to be downsides.”

The biggest drawback she mentions is being endlessly watched. “I think it’s particularly difficult for actresses,” says Knightley. “I think part of my job is to be able to observe people so I can portray them, and when you’re turned into the person who is observed, it’s very difficult to, kind of, grow and present yourself as an actress. So there are certain contradictions within all of it that make it quite tough.”

As the daughter of a writer and an actor, Knightley was barely a child when she first asked for an agent — she was 3. Her mother, the playwright Sharman Macdonald, put off the agent request until Knightley reached the ripe old age of 6. Her father is TV and theatre actor Will Knightley; with both parents involved in the profession, it’s not too surprising that Knightley’s ambition about acting was formed very early on. (She has an older brother, Caleb, who composes and teaches music.)

Like many actors who start young, however, Knightley has had to grow up in the public eye, both personally and professionally. She was only 7 when she won a role in Royal Celebration, a “Screen One” TV episode about people in London at the time of the marriage of Prince Charles and Diana Spencer. Other TV series and films followed, and in 1999 she was cast in Star Wars: Episode 1 — The Phantom Menace, as Queen Amidala’s (Natalie Portman) hand maiden. The role came to her because of her resemblance to Portman, so getting cast next in Oliver Twist was actually a more important role for her. Knightley appeared in the TV movie Princess of Thieves and the horror film The Hole, slowly moving onward and upward until she got a crucial part in Bend It Like Beckham. That role won her the British Newcomer Award in 2003 from the London Critics Circle.

It was in 2003 that Knightley starred in Pirates of the Caribbean with Johnny Depp and Orlando Bloom, and that film launched her career into the stratosphere. Still, she took plenty of heat for some of the films that followed — The Jacket, Domino and King Arthur, to be specific — and it wasn’t until after Pride & Prejudice that Knightley began to be perceived as more than just another pretty face.

For her performance as Lizzie Bennet in Pride & Prejudice, Knightley was nominated for an Oscar and a Golden Globe and for various Film Critics’ Association prizes. (She also worked with Rupert Friend on Pride & Prejudice; they have been linked romantically for about three years.)

The actress went on to star in the second and third Pirates instalments and in such features as Silk, last year’s Atonement (which won nominations and prizes all over the world, for everyone involved) and The Edge of Love. The Edge of Love was written by Knightley’s mother, and concerns the love triangle of poet Dylan Thomas, his wife Caitlin, and his former lover, Vera Phillips. The movie, out this year and not yet been released in Canada, co-stars Matthew Rhys, Sienna Miller and Cillian Murphy. As Phillips, Knightley sings in the movie, an experience she has described as the most frightening of her professional life. She sings well. Somehow, that’s not surprising.

Like Kate Winslet and a handful of others, Knightley happens to be the best-known actor in a family of actors. “But I was never in competition with my family and they’ve never been in competition with me,” she says. “Both my father and my mother have achieved wonderful things — played amazing parts, written incredible scripts. They may not have had financially the successes I’ve had, but I think each person, particularly in this profession, you have to count your own triumphs. You can’t compare them to anybody else’s, and they’ve both had enormous triumphs in different ways.”

As has she. Knightley’s success is not restricted to the movie business. She is the “face” of a famous perfume and the luxury brand Asprey and she’s appeared on a dozen “Sexiest Women” lists; more to the point, she supports several charitable causes, including Oxfam, UNICEF, Save The Children and beat (a U.K. support group for people with eating disorders).

Her fashion sense is much in demand, and Knightley is on the cover of September Vogue, the most important issue of every year. Her spread in the fashion bible involves a lot of shoes with six-inch heels — so torture-wise, are they right up there with the corsets and towering wigs she wears in The Duchess?

“As far as women’s clothing goes, we haven’t, — ah, banning the corset is a good thing, but there is a similarity between six-inch heels and the rest of it.” She laughs. “But we, however, have an option to wear trousers and NOT wear six-inch heels. The way Georgiana was held up as a sort of fashion icon, and every minute detail of what she wore was picked apart, and her appearance was picked apart and written about — it’s astounding that that’s something we haven’t moved away from in fashion itself.”

Knightley has signed on for a production of King Lear that will also star Anthony Hopkins, Gwyneth Paltrow and Naomi Watts. The film will open in 2010. Despite having such a big project in the immediate future, she says she’s realistic about her earning power. “There’s a certain point when the parts dry up. I’m very lucky, I’m making good money right now, but it’s not going to be like that forever, so I think you have to be quite sensible about it. I own my own flat in London — that’s incredible. House prices are ridiculous. So I’m very lucky. I don’t think I’m extravagant.”

She says, “My mom and dad have always brought me up to look after myself. I never wanted to be dependent upon anyone else. I expected to have to find my own way, and I’ve been incredibly lucky to be able to do that.”

Despite the Lear project, she’s currently taking a break. Knightley says she’s reading scripts and meeting people, “But the film industry is like gambling. You can have the best script and the best people, but the film may still not work. Or you can have the worst people and the worst script, and for some reason, the film actually does work.

“You never know what the outcome’s going to be, so it’s very important that you do things you’re interested in that are going to be fulfilling within themselves. Then, whatever happens with the final product, it doesn’t devalue the experience that you’ve had. So I’m looking for something I find really exciting. And when I find it, I shall do it.”

Meanwhile, she continues to love her work. “I think storytelling is an amazing thing. And I personally love watching films, getting to know people I wouldn’t normally get to know, and empathize with situations that are beyond my personal experience. When a film touches you in an emotional way, it’s the most magic thing. So to be a part of that world is hugely exciting. If I can continue with that in some way, then that would be great.”

Acting picky when it comes to strip off on screen, Keira Knightley has agreed to appear in intimate love scenes for her new role in the forthcoming big screen movie “The Duchess.” Playing the lead character, Georgiana Spencer, she willingly shares her experience filming love scenes for the flick with co-star Dominic Cooper. She discusses almost everything, from the costumes to her opinion about having sex in front of the camera.

Claiming the dresses she had to wear during the shooting as “an absolute nightmare” because the authentic 18th century costumes were too tight for her, she nevertheless found them helpful too. “It kind of helps because if you’re feeling at all emotional then it makes it ten times worse as you can’t catch your breath, so that helps in playing the scene,” so she told MTV UK. “The worst part is after lunch, because they’re so tight they don’t help digestion which meant that Hayley [Atwell, co-star] and I were there playing these very ladylike characters but belching all over the place!”

Besides the unpleasant experience, Keira still had fun during the filming though. She honestly told MTV UK that “Sex scenes are never the easiest scenes to film and you are meant to be very supportive of each other.” However, she found it funny seeing her co-star and on-screen lover Dominic came out in a “skin-colored nappy”. “I just couldn’t stop laughing. The director did actually come over and said: ‘Come on, pull yourself together, this is a serious work here’ but I could not help it - there was this man standing there in a skin-colored nappy!” she said.

Keira went on adding, “I couldn’t stop laughing. He’s a very good looking guy but he’s standing there naked apart from a skin coloured nappy. It’s the most unsexy thing ever. The director even had to ask if I could be a little more supportive and I had to say no - he’s wearing a nappy!”

“The Duchess,” which is of drama genre, is based on Amanda Foreman’s best selling biography of Georgiana, the Duchess of Devonshire. The film follows the story of Keira’s role Georgiana, the Fifth Duchess of Devonshire, who has an unhappy marriage with an older aristocrat and later on falls in love with Charles Grey, Dominic’s role. The flick is slated to be released in the U.S. on September 19 and in the U.K. on September 5.

The trailers for the new blockbuster film about Georgiana, the 18th-century Duchess of Devonshire who shared her husband with his mistress, scream: ‘History repeats itself’, as images of her direct descendant Princess Diana flash across the screen.

They were ‘two women related by ancestry and united by destiny’, we are told. And the main selling line on the posters is: ‘There were three people in her marriage.’

Although there were undeniably many remarkable similarities between the two women’s lives, it came as something of a surprise to the film’s director, Saul Dibb, and its star, Keira Knightley, that the Diana link is being so heavily, and it has to be said, so cynically and crudely promoted.

Keira Knightley insists Diana was not an inspiration for her part, despite movie marketers using the princess’ famous quote ‘there were three people in this marriage’ to promote the film

‘I can guarantee that when we were making the movie, Diana’s name was never mentioned,’ says Dibb. ‘It didn’t govern the shooting of the film or the performances. The story is about Georgiana, and no one else. It doesn’t need to be linked to anyone else because she was an exceptionally interesting person in her own right.

‘Even without the Diana comparison, it is a very strong story about the life of a fascinating woman. But I speak as a film-maker - all I did was to try to tell people about Georgiana by bringing her to life on the screen, and I had complete freedom to do it my way.

‘But once I’d done my job and the actors and actresses had done theirs, the marketing people had to decide how best to get people to go and see the film, because it cost millions to make and it’s their job to get the studio’s money back.

‘How they chose to do that is up to them. It doesn’t represent us or our approach to the film, but if it gets more people into the cinemas, perhaps they are right.’

Knightley, who plays Georgiana in The Duchess, agrees with Dibb.

‘I was only 11 when Diana died, so I don’t really know much about her story. It didn’t even occur to me to portray Georgiana as Diana, as I wasn’t conscious of the similarities, and nobody suggested I should. I was always Georgiana, never Diana.’

Amanda Foreman, the author of the best-selling biography of Georgiana on which the film is based, calls the publicity ‘a bad joke’.

She says: ‘They probably thought the only way to get the young popcorn-eating brigade to see the film was if they thought it was about Diana, but it wasn’t necessary and they should never have done that. And the line “united by destiny” is wrong. I don’t think Georgiana actually died in a carriage crash.’

Although the trailers and the posters remain unchanged in spite of all these concerns, the TV commercials for The Duchess make no reference to Diana.

Officially, the promoters insist this is because the ads are too short to show anything but the basic message.

But insiders believe the decision to tone down the Diana connection on TV was made at the highest level on the grounds of taste, sensitivity - and to head off complaints from the public.

It was perhaps naive of the film’s makers not to have realised that the connections between the two would be exploited.

It is not just their ancestry - Georgiana, born in 1757, was Diana’s great-great-great-great aunt - that they have in common. In fact, they led almost parallel lives. Both were born into the Spencer family, whose seat is Althorp in Northamptonshire, and both became engaged in their teens to the most eligible bachelors of their time - but hardly knew them.

Both had passionate affairs after finding themselves in a loveless marriage to a husband who was more interested in his mistress.

Keira plays the 18th Century Duchess of Devonshire, Georgiana

Both were bulimics, and both became glamorous fashion icons adored by the public. Georgiana became known as the Empress of Fashion; Diana as the Queen of Hearts. But in spite of the filmmakers’ subsequent reservations, Knightley says she has no regrets about starring in the film.

‘I read the story during breaks on another film I was making, The Edge Of Love, and I remember thinking that Georgiana was such a wonderful character with a lust for life and that someone ought to make a film about her.

‘Then, by coincidence, the script arrived and it specifically focused on what really interested me: the story of a doomed marriage. It was so compelling, with such a strong female role, that I couldn’t turn it down.’

The story begins with the Duke of Devonshire (Ralph Fiennes), the richest man in England, arranging with Lady Spencer (Charlotte Rampling) to marry her daughter, 17-year- old Georgiana. He is nine years older and has met her only twice, but he needs to produce a male heir to carry on his title.

Georgiana soon finds that her husband is cold and distant to her - all he wants is a son. When she has two daughters, he loses patience and takes her best friend, Lady Bess Foster (Hayley Atwell), as his mistress.

When filming began on location at Chatsworth House in Derbyshire, the Duke of Devonshire’s ancestral estate, the present Duchess showed Knightley the family’s archive of Georgiana’s belongings.

‘It was fantastic, like trawling through her life. I saw her letters, her jewellery, paintings and all the notes from her creditors that showed how much debt she was in,’ says Knightley. Georgiana owed today’s equivalent of ?3,720,000, mostly as a result of her addiction to gambling.

‘For most of her married life she had been terrified of her husband finding out that she owed so much. She was convinced he would divorce her or send her away.

‘But actually, after she died and the Duke found what her debts were, he said: “Is that all?”

‘I found it incredibly sad going through her things. She was a victim of herself and of her own innocence in a time when women had very little.’

Walking through Chatsworth’s vast rooms and long corridors - following Georgiana’s footsteps - was like being in the shadow of a ghost, Knightley says.

‘You can’t help but be overwhelmed by the sense of history, of the actuality of the past.’ As well as using Chatsworth, the film was shot in other magnificent country houses, including Kedleston Hall in Derbyshire and Holkham Hall in Norfolk. Ralph Fiennes says these settings helped him get into the part.

‘You can read up on the character, as I did, and get to know him that way, and wear the clothes, which is essential,’ he says. ‘But to be able to act with the fabric of the times around you is fantastic.

‘Apart from the room you are filming in, all around you are bookshelves, corridors, paintings, gardens, ceilings, exactly as they have been for centuries. You soak this up and instinctively assume the confidence and assurance of the place.’

Saul Dibb adds: ‘The reality is that you are working in surroundings that won’t take any knocks. Everything is original and therefore priceless. If it is damaged or broken, it is gone for ever.

‘You can’t put an arc light up in case it damages the fabric. For the marriage scene, filmed at Chatsworth, we planned a shot with the Duchess walking, surrounded by candles.

‘But there was a danger of the paintings on the ceiling melting, so when the room got too warm, we had to stop and let it cool down.

‘There were lots of other rules, too. Every time we got too close to a wall, somebody would rush over with a measuring stick. If we were more than 3ft away, it was fine, but any closer and a group of little old ladies would firmly usher us away.

‘Everyone was very accommodating, but when it came to protecting the building, they were very vigilant and I don’t blame them at all. No matter how many millions of pounds worth of insurance you take out, you can’t replace the irreplaceable.’

If the magnificent houses were the unsung stars of The Duchess, so were the costumes. It took Keira Knightley more than two painstaking hours to dress every day.

‘I had to be sewn in each time I put a costume on, and carefully unstitched when I took it off,’ she says. ‘That was what happened in those days, and while the end results would have been a fabulous look, getting there wasn’t easy.

‘For instance, when you wear a tightly laced corset, you can’t catch your breath. Once you were dressed, that was it. No chance of a toilet break because there were too many layers of clothing and I was too wide to fit into a loo cubicle.

‘The clothes, the wigs and the hats were so heavy that it became painful to stand around. At one point I had to wear a wig that was 2ft high and the weight pushed my head down into my neck. The camera couldn’t even see my eyes.

‘I had 27 different costumes for the film and I had to adopt different postures to take the strain. The crew made a special board for me to rest my aching shoulders on between takes.’

Georgiana has a raunchy bedroom scene with her lover, Charles Grey (Dominic Cooper), which manages to convey their passion without her going through the interminable process of undressing.

‘The urgency and the lust would have evaporated long before I’d got round to unlacing my final layer,’ Knightley says drily. ‘So Dominic was told to take his kit off, which was easier for a man to do.’

One of the lighter moments of the intense nine weeks of filming came during the filming of this scene. ‘On screen, it looks as if I am naked,’ explains Cooper, ‘but in reality I was wearing a flesh-coloured nappy which is held in place by being taped to my, er, inner sanctum.

‘And what did Keira do when she saw me? She burst out laughing. Unbelievable!’

‘That’s true,’ Knightley admits. ‘We are all meant to be supportive of each other in these difficult and embarrassing scenes, but I took one look at him and just lost it.

‘I couldn’t stop laughing because Dominic was trying to be dignified and aloof while looking completely ridiculous. The director came over and said: “Pull yourself together. This is serious work.” But what else was I supposed to do?’

One of many ways in which Georgiana’s story does differ from Diana’s, however, is that throughout her life she maintained a close friendship with her husband’s mistress, and the three of them lived together.

The Princess of Wales, on the other hand, refused to have any contact with Camilla Parker Bowles, although she was all too well aware of her relationship with Prince Charles.

In The Duchess there is a strong hint that there is a sexual element between Georgiana and Lady Bess.

‘In those times, there was a lack of knowledge about sex, so women often had to teach other women how to enjoy it,’ says Atwell, who plays the Duke’s mistress, Bess. ‘Bess shows Georgiana what she has been missing in her sex with the Duke. Until then, it had been purely functional - where she was required to bear him a son and heir.

Mutual pleasure didn’t come into it.’ Bess, who was more experienced, taught her what she was missing. ‘Marriage then, especially among the aristocracy, was based more on a business deal than it was on love and passion,’ continues Atwell.

‘Once the women provided the all-important son to carry on the line of accession, she was free to have love affairs with whoever she wished.’ Knightley says: ‘I was fascinated by the relationship between the two women. It struck me how incredibly lonely Georgiana was, even though she was surrounded by adoring crowds, society fawned over her and politicians hung on her every word.

‘She was so isolated within her marriage that she would try to grab any kind of love or attention she could possibly attract.

‘She and Bess become friends at a point where she is at the end of her tether because her husband doesn’t talk to her and they have had no relationship for years.

‘Suddenly, Bess is teaching her that there is enjoyment in an act that she never realised could be pleasurable. ‘Georgiana came to love her very much and that is why she felt so absolutely betrayed when she discovered Bess and the Duke were sleeping together.’

There is another poignant moment when Georgiana confesses to her husband that she is pregnant by Charles Grey, who eventually becomes Prime Minister and is given an earldom, becoming Earl Grey of tea fame. (’I did my historical research by reading up on Earl Grey on packets of Twinings tea,’ jokes Cooper).

The Duke, fearing scandal and humiliation orders her to end the affair and hand the baby over to Grey’s parents to bring up. If she disobeys him, she is told she will never see her own children again.

Georgiana has no choice but to comply, although she secretly visits her illegitimate daughter - in real life a distant ancestor of the Duchess of York - while still living with her husband and Bess.

Georgiana died in 1806 at the age of 49. The Duke, his succession secured thanks first to Georgiana, who bore him the son he craved in 1790, then married Bess, who also gave birth to a son and daughter. He then took a new mistress.

What does Georgiana’s story tell us about love and relationships? Keira Knightley says she knows the answer. ‘Oh Christ, don’t get married at 17 - to a duke! She was incredibly young and romantic, but she soon found the reality was very different. ‘It is the story of a fairytale gone incredibly wrong. It’s happened since, as we all know, and sadly, it will probably happen again.’

• The Duchess is released in cinemas next Friday.

Here’s Keira Knightley being very unstar-like: wearing her own clothes, when we meet at a club in East London; the weather is dull and, strange to relate for the global box office draw, she’s got no immediate work lined up.

But Keira - fresh from a holiday in Bali with her beau Rupert Friend - looks absolutely radiant, dressed simply in checked shirt, jeans and boots, and carting an enormous shoulder bag with tassles, buckles, bells and, for all I know, whistles.

Apart from the impending release of new film The Duchess, she is footloose and fancy-free. But she’s not despondent.

‘It’s good to step back sometimes and live life.

‘I mean, you don’t have to have murdered to play a murderer, but it is important to experience a bit of real life if I’m going to be any good at what I do.

‘I suppose I’m very aware that with the particular field of the industry I’m in, it isn’t for ever,’ she tells me.

But then she adds that she wants to grow old disgracefully and have a career that endures, like those of Judi Dench, Helen Mirren and Vanessa Redgrave.

It infuriates her that older women aren’t appreciated in this country as they are in, say, France and Italy.

‘I read articles sometimes and it’s women tearing apart other women.

‘You certainly don’t see a picture of a man of 60 standing up there with another picture of how he looked at 20 with a caption saying: “Look what happened to him! Isn’t he disgusting now?” ‘ she says, recalling an item savaging Faye Dunaway because she didn’t look the same as she did 40 years ago, in Bonnie And Clyde.

‘Yet we also find it disgusting that women have cosmetic surgery.

‘You never quite know what you’re meant to do. People age - that’s what happens.

‘I think it would be great to see more older actresses playing characters who are doing amazing things.

‘It’s boring to see movies featuring women in their 20s all the time - I don’t just want to have a romantic, 20-year-old, silly girl in films all the time,’ she says, laughing at herself as she says it.

In fact, Keira does play a young woman, though not a silly one - Regency beauty and socialite Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire - in Saul Dibbs’s triumph The Duchess, a film I can see as an Oscar and Bafta contender on all fronts.

‘Georgiana had no power whatsoever, but she managed to create herself as a force in politics,’ she tells me.

Her own politics are her own business she says, smartly cutting me off before I venture in that direction, although she allows that she has been following the American presidential elections - Barack Obama in particular.

Her information on the subject comes from papers and books. She doesn’t watch TV - although she admits to being hooked on the HBO series The Wire, which she’s watching on DVD.

‘That’s where my money goes: documentary and drama DVDs. The books are for work and pleasure.

‘I don’t have any formal education so I’ve taken it upon myself to try and not be as ignorant as I was,’ she says.

Where else does her money go?

‘I spend it on very good food and I’m very fortunate to have a lot of flowers,’ she says.

I wonder if she has the blooms flown in on a private jet from some exotic spot like one or two actresses I have known.

‘Who does that? Do tell!

‘I have one bouquet of flowers a week, which is a complete extravagance, from a florist down the street. It’s nice to have flowers in the flat.

‘My parents taught me the value of money. I don’t take it for granted and, to tell you the truth, I don’t have very expensive tastes.

‘Don’t get me wrong: occasionally I might splash out, but it seems wasteful to buy unnecessary things.’

She rubbishes reports that last year she pocketed $33 million. ‘Wow, that would be nice! I’d have a very big house and I’d buy the dresses I borrow for the red carpet.

‘I’m very lucky at the moment, but not that lucky.’

She admits that she could earn more if she made a constant stream of big-budget Hollywood fare like the Pirates films.

‘But when you do films like The Edge Of Love and The Duchess there are no big pay days - you do them because you want to do the work, and to work with certain directors. My ambition isn’t to buy loads of property.’

Anything tucked away is for her bus-pass years but, she adds: ‘I want to be doing this when I’m old, without any fuss.’

The 23-year-old Pirates of The Caribbean star arrives to meet eager journalists in what looks like a full-length frilly black nightie. Keira clearly learned one thing from portraying infamous 18th century socialite Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, in her latest film The Duchess - that she needs to take full advantage of her modern right to breathe. “The costumes were completely fantastic because Georgiana was a very famous fashion icon. But they weren’t particularly comfortable,” she says frankly. “In a corset you can’t catch your breath. It means your emotions are heightened because you can’t calm down.”

Considering she plays an aristocrat whose glamorous, yet tragic, life has led her to be compared with the late Princess of Wales, this was not such a bad thing.

Author Amanda Foreman is largely responsible for bringing the duchess’ life back into the spotlight, thanks to a biography she wrote in 1998.

Details about her husband’s infidelity, her trend-setting outfits, affair with the future prime minister Lord Grey and eventual menage-a-trois with her husband and former best friend Lady Bess Foster, proved sensational reading and the book was an instant hit.

The film version, to be released on September 5, stars Keira Knightley along with Ralph Fiennes as the Duke, Dominic Cooper (The History Boys and Mamma Mia) as her lover Lord Grey and Hayley Atwell (The Line Of Beauty) as Bess.

Although the film’s producers are hoping that linking Diana, Princess of Wales with her great-great-great-great-aunt Georgiana will help attract large audiences, Keira says she didn’t play on the connection.

“I was 11 when Diana died. I knew when I was going into it that she was a distant relation but that’s as far as my knowledge went. I was making a film about Georgiana Duchess of Devonshire and I think she’s an interesting enough person to warrant a film about her, without comparison.”

The beautiful and charismatic Georgiana was married at 17 to the Duke of Devonshire - a man more interested in sleeping with the maids and playing with his dogs than his new wife - and for many years was unable to bear him an heir.

Her husband ignored her as a result and her dreams of a fairytale life gradually died. But despite her personal problems, the young duchess won the heart of English society, and only the Duke seemed immune to her appeal.

“I first heard about the film when Saul (the director) sent me a letter with three really big ostrich feathers tied with a big bow,” says Keira. “They were very pretty and I thought I have to work with a man who does that.”

The feathers were a nod to one of Georgiana’s more flamboyant and original head-dresses which helped turn her into one of the most talked about women of her time.

“When I read the script the first thing that struck me was how incredibly lonely this woman was,” says Keira.

“She was constantly surrounded by so many people and yet entirely alone. I think she just tried to grab on to any kind of love and attention that she could possibly get.”

Naturally enthusiastic and intelligent, Georgiana became involved in politics and eventually fell in love with the future Prime Minister, Lord Grey.

But despite having to accept her husband’s mistress in a humiliating and extremely public menage-a-trois, her love for Grey was forbidden by the Duke.

“The whole journey for her is one from idealism to reality - she gets broken down. She couldn’t have lived with herself if she’d gone off with Grey and given up her kids. I don’t know if it has a happy ending but I think that she survives and that can only be positive.”

Although the 18th century paparazzi at that time constituted a bunch of talented cartoonists, as one of the most powerful, beautiful and controversial ladies in the land, the Duchess’ life was still the subject of endless gossip column inches and public speculation.

Like her former modern-day equivalent, Princess Diana, the thrill- seeking aristocrat found it difficult to keep out of the headlines. “The current Duchess of Devonshire showed me some of Georgiana’s things. She was a huge gambling addict, so it was amazing to see her books of debts written in her own hand,” Keira says. As well as her love of cards and extravagant shopping habits, the Duchess liked to socialise and drink with society’s opinion makers. The public adored her unique combination of intelligence and wilful self-destruction. Keira appears in almost every scene of the film and admits that playing the Duchess wasn’t easy.

“It was completely terrifying. It’s very rare to get a role like that, so when it comes along and you get the opportunity to play it, it’s phenomenal and terrifying.”

Although she had a lot on her plate, Keira did let her hair down occasionally during filming - but not literally, as the authentic 18th century head-dresses needed to be painstakingly unpinned.

“During the sex scene with Grey I was luckily fully clothed but he got to wear a skin coloured nappy. On set, you’re supposed to be supportive of each other but when he came out I completely lost it. I couldn’t stop laughing, and Saul did come over and say, ‘Come on, pull yourself together and do some serious work’.”

Shot over nine weeks in the autumn of 2007, the film is set in three principle locations, the Devonshire’s London home, Devonshire House; their country estate, Chatsworth and Bath. Several locations were used to recreate their lavish homes including Kedleston Hall in Derbyshire, Holkham Hall in Norfolk, Osterley Park, and also Chatsworth, the ancestral home of the Devonshires, where the current Duke and Duchess still live.

“Being in those enormous houses, helped with the feelings of isolation that I thought Georgina was going through. The sheer scale and beauty of them is quite astounding,” Keira says.

But having played such a wonderful role does she hope more similar projects will come along?

“Recently I do seem to be getting sent books and ideas for stronger female characters, which is completely fantastic. I think if people go and see films about strong women, they’ll be more made and if they don’t, they won’t. It’s up to the public.”

The Duchess is released on September 5

I may poke a little bit of fun at Keira Knightley’s expense on occassion for taking on so many period pieces, but one thing is for certain, she knows how to pick ‘em. I loved Atonement and Pride and Prejudice and can’t wait to see The Duchess, which hits theaters on September 26th, but will debut at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 7. The film is set in the late 18th century and is based on Georgiana Spencer, the Duchess of Devonshire, played by Keira Knightley. I have just added six new pictures from the film including the one teased above and they continue to show off the look and design of the costumes featured in the film and highly publicized on the film’s official site. You can click here to check out the gallery.

“The dresses are an absolute nightmare because you can’t breathe” revealed Keira Knightley, of her authentic 18th century costume. “But it kind of helps because if you’re feeling at all emotional then it makes it ten times worse as you can’t catch your breath, so that helps in playing the scene.” Miss Knightley continued: “The worst part is after lunch, because they’re so tight they don’t help digestion which meant that Hayley [Atwell, co-star] and I were there playing these very ladylike characters but belching all over the place!”

Like Princess Diana, her direct descendent, Keira’s character Georgiana Spencer, Duchess of Devonshire is beautiful, glamorous and adored by the public.

It seems the fact that filmmakers use an image of Diana in the trailer and the words “history repeats itself” hasn’t gone down too well: “I didn’t think it was going to be made such a big deal of - perhaps stupidly” said Keira. “I really don’t know the Diana story well enough to know what the similarities are but I think Georgiana’s a fascinating character in her own right. It’s an interesting bit of trivia that they were distantly related, but for me it didn’t go any further than that.”

After finding herself stuck in a loveless marriage, Keira’s Duchess falls in love with with Charles Grey, later the Prime Minister, played by another young British actor Dominic Cooper (Mamma Mia, History Boys). We asked Keira about shooting those steamy love scenes….

“I couldn’t stop laughing. He’s a very good looking guy but he’s standing there naked apart from a skin coloured nappy. It’s the most unsexy thing ever. The director even had to ask if I could be a little more supportive and I had to say no - he’s wearing a nappy!”

The Duchess is in cinemas across the UK on September 9th.

Keira Knightley, the actress who plays Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire in a new film about the aristocrat’s adulterous life, has criticised the trailer because it implies that the movie is also about Diana, Princess of Wales.

“I am Georgiana,” said Knightley, 23, who was nominated for an Oscar for her role in Pride & Prejudice. “I am not Diana. The film is not about Diana.”

The trailer for The Duchess, which is being shown in cinemas, shows a clip of Diana juxtaposed with one of Georgiana. On the screen appear the words: “The two were related by ancestry and united by destiny” before a voice says: “History repeats itself.”

The duchess, an 18th-century beauty and socialite, was born Georgiana Spencer and was the great-great-great-great aunt of Diana.

Knightley is not the only one annoyed by the trailer.

Amanda Foreman, who wrote the biography on which the film is based, said: “There is absolutely no reason to have done this trailer, which is a bad joke.

“The marketing people probably thought the only way they could get the young popcorn-eating brigade to see this film was if they made some comparison with Diana. But they did not need to and should not have done it.”

While there are some similarities between the lives of Georgiana and Diana, nether Foreman’s book nor the film makes any reference to the former Princess of Wales.

Both women married important men, who then took up with mistresses. Georgiana’s husband, the Duke of Devonshire, had an affair with Lady Elizabeth Foster.

Georgiana, who, like Diana, was very fashion-conscious, then formed a relationship with Earl Grey, the politician after whom the tea is named. She was also an active political campaigner.

Knightley, Foreman and Saul Dibb, the film’s British director, all blame “the marketing men” for the trailer for the film, which opens on September 5.

“We didn’t want to make any parallels between the two women whatsoever,” said Dibb. “It didn’t govern the shooting of the film or the performances.”

Foreman added: “Trailers should be what the film is about. But in this case, the trailer is not connected to the film.”

She is also annoyed with the “united by destiny” tag. “I don’t actually think that Georgiana died in a carriage crash.”

Pathé Pictures and BBC Films, which produced The Duchess, said marketing was carried out separately from film-making.