"Would you like a berry?" Keira Knightley asked me this morning as I sat down to interview her about her film Atonement in her room at the Park Hyatt Hotel. She was munching on a cup of mixed berries as a make-shift breakfast as our session started at about 10.
"I suppose it would be more exciting if I had chocolate to offer," she said.
And it was that kind of interview. Some actors launch into a sort of prerehearsed discussion about the movie, and some prefer to just sort of shoot the breeze for a while. And Knightley falls into the second category.
After about a 20 minute chat I was done with my questions, so we started in on the berries again. I made the comment that I always liked blackberries but they always get stuck in my teeth.
"I have gappy teeth, so that's not really a problem for me," she said.
I smiled to show her I too have some serious gaps in the front and she was nice enough to say that my teeth were, in fact, good.
"Straight teeth are [expletive]," she said, throwing around the sort of casual swearing that makes British people endearing. "My dentist asked me once if I wanted braces and I said [expletive] no! You've got to have teeth with character."
So now I suppose when I look at my gappy teeth in the mirror, I'll just remember that I've got choppers with character. Thanks, Keira.