The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in September.
Keira Knightley and Dominic West are embracing their big-screen celebrity romance!
The pair stars in the new film Colette, based on a true story, about Gabrielle Colette (Knightley), the acclaimed French novelist, and her electric-yet-often-volatile relationship with her husband, Henry “Willy” Gauthier-Villars, who pawned off her writings as his own to great success. Soon they were the toast of Paris — and Colette wanted credit for her work.
ET recently spoke with the acting duo at the Toronto International Film Festival to discuss the literary couple’s dizzying dynamic.
“They were a powerful kind of combination of sort, this kind of jewel-like, you know, incredible creatures and you needed to see why she was with him, you needed to see ‘OK, yes, he was exploitative and there are various things in the film that make him definitely the villain,’” Knightley, 33, explained before adding, “You know, he was also magnetic.”
Knightley went on to discuss Colette and her willful husband’s celebrity status at the time, even befitting of a modern-day couple’s name a la Brangelina or Kimye.
“I think celebrity couple is right,” she said. “And I think what I was really struck by was… you think that that's a modern phenomenon and it isn’t.”
Soon, West and Knightley did their best to fit the pair with a name of their own!
“I want to see the hybrid,” the leading man stated. “Colilly?” he suggested, combining Willy and Colette.
“Colly, that’s a dog isn’t it? Is that a dog?” Knightley responded. “Maybe we should go with that.”
Colette is currently playing in select cities and will be in theaters nationwide on Oct. 12.
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