Interestingly, he couldn’t say much about Knightley’s participation– “Keira might well do it”– which probably mean the years-old reports about Knightley being in the film are still valid. Below you can see Wright’s rebuttal for yourself, including what seems to be utter bewilderment that anyone would make up this story to begin with.

Source: Cinema Blend

Back in June of 2008 we told you that producers Sir Cameron Mackintosh and Duncan Kenworthy were in the process of remaking “My Fair Lady” and that Keira Knightley was already polishing up on her cockney accent to play the lead in the film. The plan was to make a faithful adaptation of the award-winning 1964 version – songs, score and all – and to have the formidable Emma Thompson rework the script.

Aside from the fact that a film adaptation of “My Fair Lady” is completely unnecessary, Knightley seemed like a good fit for Eliza. She’s British, don’t you know.

Knightley, an unremarkable singer by all accounts, apparently started voice lessons for “My Fair Lady” over a year ago and all mentions of the film’s progress over the past 12 months or so featured Keira’s starring turn as a foregone conclusion. Until last August. At that point the UK’s Telegraph Mandrake column quoted Mackintosh as saying that he had “two actresses as potential Elizas, one British, the other American.” He wasn’t “letting on” who the American might be but the reporter was happy to fill in the blank… Scarlett Johansson!

Flash forward to two days ago when the self-same Telegraph reporter proudly proclaimed “Keira Knightley beats Scarlett Johansson to be My Fair Lady!” What a relief, eh? Seriously, I have no doubt that Scarlett’s name was mentioned (she’s on the short list for every movie that features a woman aged 16-36) but when you already have an A-list actress who would only need ONE dialect coach to learn the role, starting some kind of puffed up cat fight over the part smacks a bit of manufactured publicity.

Then again, perhaps Knightley was waiting for her favorite director to get freed up to join the project before she would commit fully. Joe Wright, who directed Keira in both “Pride and Prejudice” and “Atonement”, has agreed to take on “My Fair Lady” in the wake of the cancellation of his “Indian Summer” feature by Universal due to “budgetary issues.”

For those of you who may not know, “My Fair Lady” the musical was originally based on George Bernard Shaw’s play “Pygmalion” which was in turn based on a play by the Greek master Ovid. Starting to see why another trip to hear “the Rain in Spain” might be a bit gratuitous?

I will say that I have every confidence that Emma Thompson will do the script justice. She accomplished one of the most striking screen re-working’s of a Jane Austen book with her “Sense and Sensibility” script, and if that other big casting rumor – that Daniel Craig may play Professor Henry Higgins – pans out then perhaps I can move this film from the “remakes we don’t care about” file to the file for “remakes we only care a tiny bit about” instead.

Source: Collider.com

Keira Knightley is to make her West End debut in a modern-day version of Molière’s The Misanthrope.

She will play an ambitious American film star and darling of the social scene in the comedy, originally set in 17th century Paris. Martin Crimp, the writer, has adapted the play and transplanted it to contemporary London.

Knightley has admitted in the past to feeling nervous about appearing on stage. In an interview last year, the 24-year-old actress said that she planned to choose her first theatre role with care. “I can’t quite handle the idea of ‘Screen Actress in Big West End Hit’ and all that. I would prefer to do something smaller.”

Before becoming a Hollywood star with roles in the Pirates of the Caribbean films and Pride and Prejudice, an unknown Knightley tried and failed to land a stage role. “I used to go up for auditions and never get them. The last one was when I was 15 and I completely blew it,” she recalled.

Her mother, Sharman MacDonald, is a playwright and Knightley said: “I’d love to be in one of my mother’s plays, for sentimental reasons and because she’s a good writer, but that would be a bit corny for my first outing.”

The Misanthrope opens at London’s Comedy Theatre on December 17.

Damian Lewis, the actor best known for his role in the television mini-series Band of Brothers, will co-star as a cynical and disillusioned writer who falls in love with Knightley’s character.

The play will be directed by Thea Sharrock, whose previous credits include the award-winning adaptation of Equus starring Daniel Radcliffe.

Source: Independent.ie

The starring role of Eliza Doolittle was originally played by screen legend Audrey Hepburn. Oscar-winning director Danny Boyle is to helm the picture and is rumoured to want 24-year-old Knightley for the iconic part, reports STV.

An insider said: “Keira and Scarlett are the only two real contenders and Keira’s the favourite. She’s the most natural Eliza people have seen.

“She has worked on her singing voice for a year and will get better and better.”

Production on My Fair Lady is to begin late next year.

Source: Digital Spy

Keira Knightley has fought marauders in Pirates of the Caribbean and suffered in the Second World War in Atonement, but now faces her biggest challenge. Mandrake hears that the 24-year-old actress has been forced to compete with Scarlett Johansson for the role of Eliza Doolittle in a remake of My Fair Lady.

After I disclosed in 2006 that Knightley was being lined up for the part by Sir Cameron Mackintosh, the co-producer, she confirmed last year that she had auditioned and begun singing lessons.

She has since been told, however, that she has an American rival for the part of the Cockney flower seller played by Audrey Hepburn in the 1964 film.

“I have two actresses as potential Elizas, one British, the other American,” said Sir Cameron. “You’d know their names, but I’m not letting on.”

Emma Thompson is writing the script for the film, which Stephen Daldry is expected to direct. Daniel Craig may be Professor Henry Higgins.

Johansson, 24, who made her debut as a vocalist with an album last year, was once approached by Lord Lloyd-Webber about playing Maria in The Sound of Music on the West End stage, but he decided to choose an actress through a television talent contest instead.

Source: Telegraph.co.uk

The slimline British actress looks to have increased several cup sizes in the latest campaign for Coco Mademoiselle perfume.

In 2004, an image of Knightley was digitally enhanced for the US posters advertising her film, King Arthur. She said at the time: “Those things certainly weren’t mine.”

For the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, make-up artists took a more old-fashioned approach by painting in a cleavage to give the impression that she was spilling out of her corsets.

“They painted my **** on me for the films, which is extraordinary because it’s kind of a dying art form. In the past, they used to have whole sections of the studios devoted to bosom make-up. And I loved it, completely loved it. Because it was the first time in my life I had big **** and I didn’t even need surgery,” she said.

The 24-year-old actress was signed as the face of Coco Mademoiselle in 2007.

Her slender frame has attracted much attention since she sprang to fame in Bend It Like Beckham, and in 2007 she won libel damages from a newspaper which falsely implied she had an eating disorder.

The Oscar-nominated star will be seen next in Never Let Me Go, an adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel. She has also been cast as Eliza Doolittle in a forthcoming screen version of My Fair Lady.

Source: Telegraph.co.uk

They were lovers, once. Now, they meet again. It’s 1940, there’s a war on and he’s married.

The Edge of Love, now on DVD, is a wartime romance, a love triangle involving the poet Dylan Thomas. It features a first-ever star-pairing of Keira Knightley and Sienna Miller, the two reigning bombshells of the British cinema. And it’s a terrible tease.

The film, based on real events, was written by Knightley’s mom, Sharman MacDonald, and has the look of a WW II film on a budget and the intimacy of great melodrama. The look is stylized, colors dampened or heightened by memory. What it lacks is a coherent tale to tell and a charismatic Dylan Thomas.

Vera (Knightley) and Mrs. Thomas (Miller) are fast friends, trusting (She won’t steal my husband) and cozy enough for the occasional shared bathtub.

All this sexiness is frittered away in a tale that keeps the romance frosty and the Dylan Thomas limited.

Matthew Rhys (TV’s Brothers & Sisters) isn’t the most magnetic version of the hard-drinking, language-loving Welsh poet. The film doesn’t give Rhys enough scenes as Thomas the writer. He’s just Dylan the dull womanizer. Why does he do it?

“Because I’m a poet. A poet feeds off life.”

Cillian Murphy plays the new man in Vera’s life. “I just got posted” is his proposal, so she marries him and he ships off to war, then she and Dylan and Caitlin go live in adjoining cottages on the coast where the scenery is wet and majestic, the relationships strained.

Knightley and Miller are fascinating to watch together — the one playing a gaunt, porcelain-skinned model of period-piece perfection — the other an earthier, more sexual creature. But their characters”relationship on the screen is restrained, as if it’s been vetted by lawyers. And the film around them is hurt by the underwritten, melodramatic men in it.

Hot starlets in a hot tub may be a selling point, but it’s hardly an excuse for an entire movie.

Source: Orlando Sentinel