The Duchess

Top 10 Fun Facts

1. It is rumored that the title character in The Duchess, Georgina Spencer, traded kisses for votes for her candidate during elections. This is a get-out-the-vote technique that frat boys across America would embrace whole-heartedly.
2. The film The Duchess depicts the extravagant lifestyle of a woman who was said to have had a "natural relationship" with the Queen of France, Marie Antoinette. She also had an unnatural relationship with the beheaded Queen, claiming that her ghost frequently visited her.
3. Costume designer Michael O'Connor used 18th century portraits and political cartoons of Georgiana as inspiration when creating her blue "Fox uniform."
4. Keira Knightley wore a dress known as the "Drunken Dress" during a scene in The Duchess. Because the scene involved her setting fire to her hair and spilling alcohol, the costume designers made three exact copies of the dress. They used 36 yards of silk and applied lace by hand to each dress. Now that's attention to detail.
5. The Duchess' marketing campaign showed no shame in capitalizing on similarities between the film's plot and that of the life of the title character's decedent, Princess Diana by using a reworked quote by the Princess as the tagline, "There were three people in her marriage."
6. Actress Keira Knightly returned to a familiar location to shoot the first kiss between her character and Charles Grey' in The Duchess. Knightly's character was less accommodating at the location in Pride & Prejudice when she rejected an unromantic marriage proposal.
7. Both The Duchess and Pride & Prejudice open with a shot of Keira Knightley walking across a field holding something in her hands. They also both have her in corsets at all times. Given her penchant for period pieces, this will probably not be the last time either of these things occur.
8. Although the British love to complain about their weather, it has never gone from summer to fall in one day as unintentionally depicted in The Duchess. If the film was to be believed, the day Duchess son was born the leaves turn color in the span of a few minutes. And no one noticed.
9. Director Saul Dibb said, "The Duchess was a chance for lead actress Keira Knightley to take a character from late childhood - she's married at 17-into full adulthood, 10 years later." Remember age 27 was considered ancient in the 1700s.
10. Studio executives wanted to use digitally altered images of Keira Knightley in promotional materials for The Duchess and enlarge her breasts. However, Knightley objected to the false promotion and no digital breast augmentation was utilized to promote the movie.

Cast

Crew