When director Simon Stone first read the script for Netflix‘s latest psychological thriller “The Woman in Cabin 10,” it was as if he was transported back in time.
“I was really intrigued by how much it felt like it came from an era of movies that we don’t really do anymore,” Stone tells Variety of the film, which is based on Ruth Ware’s 2016 novel of the same name. “The script itself is very Hitchcockian — it’s of a period of thrillers that were made the last time the world went crazy politically, post-Watergate.”
Out on Netflix now, “The Woman in Cabin 10” follows Lo Blacklock, an investigative journalist aboard a mysterious billionaire’s luxury cruise ship who is convinced she saw a passenger being thrown overboard. As Lo gets closer and closer to the truth, paranoia seeps in while everyone else on the ship tells her she is losing her mind. The tense film is anchored by none other than Keira Knightley, who delivers a layered performance as a woman refusing to back down in the face of injustice.
Author Ware was shocked when she found out Knightley was attached to the project, but says the Oscar nominee really got to “the heart of Lo’s character.”
“On the one hand she’s got a fragility, a sort of vulnerability, and on the other she’s got a real inner strength — a core of steel and an unshakeable sense of what is right. I think Keira nails that,” Ware says.
To prepare, Stone asked Knightley to watch a series of iconic thrillers: Francis Ford Coppola’s “The Conversation,” starring Gene Hackman; “The Parallax View” with Warren Beatty; and the Robert Redford films “All the President’s Men” and “Three Days of the Condor.” Knightley, who has been on a run with the genre lately thanks to her hit Netflix series “Black Doves,” was eager to take on another edge-of-your-seat project.
“I’m a big fan of the thriller genre, I love it, and all of those films that he mentioned have been films that I’ve just loved,” Knightley says. “So the opportunity to play that lead character — that is normally a man — was just one that I thought, ‘Oh God, this is exciting.’ You wouldn’t necessarily look at me and think Gene Hackman type, you know?”
Keira Knightley and David Ajala in “The Woman in Cabin 10.”
Parisa Taghizadeh/Netflix
Knightley says she took inspiration from the “calm” performances of Hackman, Redford and Beatty, while at the same time making it her own by dialing up the paranoia. “You were like, ‘Warren Beatty does nothing in ‘Parallax View,’” Stone recalls with a chuckle. “And I said, ‘Well maybe give me a little bit more than that.’ And Keira finds this extraordinary nuance.”
“It’s a relaxed, cool path that they choose, which is super interesting when you’re dealing with tension. That’s basically what a thriller is — it’s how you serve that kind of tension,” Knightley adds. “There’s a leaning against a wall or constantly chewing or constantly thinking and watching everybody else, but actually the action is happening with everybody around them.”
Guy Pearce convincingly portrays the billionaire in question, Richard Bullmer, while Knightley’s Lo is aided in her search for the truth by her photographer ex-boyfriend Ben, played by David Ajala.
“The one thing I really enjoyed about this story is how claustrophobic it felt and intense, in the right way,” Ajala says. “There was a good thrilling energy to it, if captured correctly on camera. And I don’t mind being involved in a whodunit murder mystery because then we all become armchair detectives trying to figure out who it is.”
The character of Bullmer marks yet another shady figure in the repertoire of Pearce, who scored an Oscar nomination last year for his haunting performance as another filthy rich and ill-intentioned man in Brady Corbet’s “The Brutalist.”
Guy Pearce in “The Woman in Cabin 10.”
Parisa Taghizadeh/Netflix
Pearce says that he finds himself drawn to “characters that have internal darkness and things that they’re dealing with themself because it’s just interesting stuff to play.”
“More so than playing a romantic lead,” he adds. “I’m not very good at that stuff anyway… but yeah, I gotta be careful not to be typecast.”
Pearce will next star in Ridley Scott’s post-apocalyptic sci-fi film “The Dog Stars,” while Knightley is set to deliver a second season of “Black Doves” for Netflix. Also in the works at the streamer is a new series adaptation of Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice,” a text that Knightley is more than familiar with, having starred in the beloved 2005 film alongside Matthew Macfadyen.
Asked if she has any advice for the new cast — led by Emma Corrin as Elizabeth Bennet and Jack Lowden as Mr. Darcy — Knightley says with a smile: “I can’t wait to see it. I mean look, you don’t need words of advice. With that cast, it’s a no-brainer. That cast, that book, what could go wrong? It’s going to be amazing.”
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