Knightley disagrees with the appearance of Princess Diana in the trailer of her new movie ‘The Duchess’
Keira Knightley has joined in the growing debate over the use of Princess Diana’s name and image to promote her new movie ‘The Duchess‘. In the new movie opening in Ireland next month Knightley plays Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, a distant 18th century relation of Diana. While the movie has no reference to Diana the trailer uses pictures of her to emphasise the link between the two women and reads “The two were related by ancestry and united by destiny”.
Knightley agrees with the insensitive use of Diana’s name, insisting that her character should not be compared to the late princess she said “I am Georgiana, I am not Diana, this film is not about Diana”.
The film’s author Amanda Foreman appears to be outraged by the marketing of the film, “There is absolutely no reason to have done this trailer, which is a bad joke.” she said, “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.”
She also said to the Telegraph Newspaper that the “united by destiny” tag is inaccurate. I don’t actually think that Georgiana died in a carriage crash”.
The Duchess is at Irish cinemas from September 5th