Keira Knightley thinks actors "don't need to be very bright" to do their job but they should "have empathy".
Keira Knightley
The 33-year-old actress admitted that she didn't do "very much research" for her latest role in 'The Aftermath' - which follows Rachael Morgan, the wife of a British colonel who is relocated to Hamburg after World War Two - she thought the movie's themes were a "really easy thing to tap into".
In an interview with talkRADIO, she said: "I didn't do very much research on this, because I think as an adult if you've loved you know the fear of loss you know where that sits in you. I think it's actually a really easy thing to tap into. I think most people are frightened of losing the people that are closest to them. And I think as an actor, you don't need to be very bright, you do need to have empathy.
"Hopefully people that watch this story or connect to this story in any way hopefully you've not been through anything like this but I think it would be hard not to empathise with these people."
The 'Pride & Prejudice' star also explained that although she's been in many films set in this time period, she's never had a role in a film which asks questions about rebuilding life after war.
She explained: "I've done a lot of World War Two films and I've watched a lot of World War Two films and I've never seen something set in exactly this period that kind of asks these questions. How on earth if you'd been through what that whole generation had been through, the trauma of all of that how do you rebuild? How do you stand back up? You know, how do you do any of this stuff? It's kind of unimaginable how triumphant that they actually managed to do it."
Tagged in Keira Knightley