Even Keira Knightley was left ‘unsettled’ by her new Netflix thriller

Keira Knightley might have starred in one of the most heart-racing thrillers to hit our screens last year, but her latest project left even her on edge. 

The actress rose to fame as a teenager with her break-through role in Bend It Like Beckham, also going on to star in Love Actually, Pride & Prejudice and Atonement. Last year she also made her long-awaited TV return in the Netflix action thriller Black Doves, which saw her nominated for a Golden Globe.  

Today, her new movie The Woman in Cabin 10 hits screens. Based on the best-selling book by Ruth Ware, the high-tension psychological thriller sees her star as journalist Lo, who is invited on a luxury yacht for a travel assignment. 

But on her first night, she hears an argument and witnesses a woman thrown overboard in the cabin next door. 

Immediately raising the alarm, she is met with much confusion from the crew and fellow passengers, who question her story after being told that everyone is accounted for.  

Not taking no for an answer, she pushes to discover the truth of what happened – but puts her life in danger in the process.  

Speaking to Metro ahead of the film’s release, Keira and director Simon Stone revealed whether they felt pressure to keep fans of the book satisfied with the big screen adaptation.  

‘There’s always a pressure, but that’s what’s exciting about it. With this one, Simon had asked me not to read the book,’ she explained. 

‘He was like “this is the film, and we have got to make it ours and that is always important”.  

‘But what was really nice – before we started was a friend of mine had just got back from her summer holiday and she’d been reading this, and it had been her holiday read and she was like “I loved it! I was sat by the pool with a Pina Colada, and it was really great”. And you want to capture that spirit and give someone a great night where they are super excited by it. I think we are capturing the spirit of the novel, while also making it our own.’ 

Meanwhile Simon – best known for previously directing The Daughter and The Dig – said it was ‘fun’ diverging from the novel.  

‘Everyone has their own version of a book in their head, but I think it would be impossible to achieve the version of the millions of people who have read the book and seen it in a different way. So that’s a fool’s error – don’t even try.   

‘What’s fun about it is that it is in the spirit of. Ruth was really excited when she came and saw it recently and said it feels like the book, but she was glad we had changed so much of what the book is. It’s an homage, as much as it is an adaptation.’ 

The chilling voyage has been billed as a ‘mystery that grips viewers from the moment they set sail’.  

As Lo tries to uncover what really happened, she is ridiculed by the wealthy passengers also on board, who are convinced she’s simply paranoid.  

Filming these scenes were particularly ‘unsettling’ for Keira, who felt as isolated as her character.  

‘I think when we were filming, the claustrophobia of being the only one in the room saying, “this has happened” and everyone going “you are nuts” is quite a powerful thing. Even if you know you are playing and know it’s not real, feeling that energy come at you is a lot,’ she explained. 

With Lo presented as a reliable narrator from the get-go, Ruth has said that the ‘heart’ of the story is a ‘woman who experiences something wrong, reports it truthfully, and isn’t taken seriously because of who she is’, with audiences then desperate for her to be vindicated.  

A decade on from the book’s release, the author said she was floored seeing her story come to life.  

‘It was an out of body experience seeing characters I’d dreamt up in my spare room and words that I’d written almost 10 years ago coming out of the mouths of flesh and blood human beings,’ she explained. 

‘It did feel like some sort of superpower. I can see writers getting addicted to this. I’d never been on a cruise when I wrote the book, let alone a luxury yacht and the boat in the film is so close to how I imagined it. 

‘The experience has been beyond my wildest dreams and exceeded my expectations in every way.’ 

However, when watching the final cut for the first time, she was caught off guard. 

‘I found the movie surprisingly scary even though I knew what was going to happen the whole time!’ she laughed.  

With Simon keen to make the setting feel ‘claustrophobic and suffocating despite the grandeur’, the decision was made to film on an actual superyacht – called the Savannah. 

Valued at a staggering $150million (£111million), there were strict measures in place while filming, with the crew even restricted in what equipment they could bring on board, presenting them with plenty of obstacles. 

‘We weren’t allowed lighting stands or dollies. So, there was literally no equipment,’ Simon laughed.  

‘So how do you shoot a film without equipment? We literally had magnets to hang lights off bits of the walls.’ 

Meanwhile Keira recalled how even the cast ‘weren’t allowed to wear shoes, touch the walls, the floors or the carpets’. 

‘And we weren’t allowed to touch or sit on the furniture. If it was in a scene, you were allowed to sit on it, but when we would cut, they’d have to get off. Then people would rush up and start fluffing the carpet.’  

Their sentiments were echoed by Guy Pearce and David Ajala – who play the yacht’s owner Richard Bullmer and photographer Ben, who is also Lo’s former flame. 

‘We were filming on a luxurious yacht, but it felt anything but luxurious as we weren’t allowed to sit on the couches, walk on the carpets or lean against the walls. The real crew of the ship were our crew, and we had the film crew and so they were anxious by having like 85 people on the boat, where there should only be about 12,’ Guy said. 

‘So being on the boat was actually a difficult experience and we would go outside to get air, and it was freezing. Look first world problems, but it was far more difficult on the boat than it appears.’ 

For David, dealing with the obstacles of filming in the English Channel gave him intense cabin fever mixed with stomach-churning motion sickness. 

‘I thought it was all going to be a green screen and was then told we’d actually be filming on a yacht,’ he said. 

‘I was impressed how well I dealt with my motion sickness, and I purposely didn’t tell anyone when I had it,’ he laughed. 

The Woman in Cabin 10 also stars Art Malik, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Kaya Scodelario, David Morrissey, Daniel Ings and Hannah Waddingham. 

The Woman in Cabin 10 is now streaming on Netflix.  

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