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Wash Westmoreland on the dynamic between Keira Knightley and Dominic West: "I had seen in [Joe Wright's] Pride & Prejudice how strongly she takes apart Mr. Darcy [Matthew Macfadyen]. I wanted to even take it further to get into the psycho-sexual hold that Willy had over Colette." Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

Wash Westmoreland's incisive Colette, co-written with Richard Glatzer and Rebecca Lenkiewicz (co-writer of Sebastián Lelio's Disobedience and Pawel Pawlikowski's Oscar-winner Ida) knows that its heroine, portrayed by Keira Knightley, will always be larger than what is on screen. Her husband Willy (Dominic West) forced her to write, she obeyed, masterful literature was born. The narrative is more entangled than that. Colette's parents in the countryside, Robert Pugh as her father Jules and Fiona Shaw as her mother Sido, are personalities in their own right, not just caricatures that help the plot along.

Wash Westmoreland on La Belle Époque...

Wash Westmoreland at Le Parker Meridien in New York : "My co-writer and late husband Richard Glatzer was really the first one to feel a connection. He spoke fluent French and his birthday was the same day as Colette's." Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

Wash Westmoreland's Colette, co-written with Richard Glatzer and Rebecca Lenkiewicz (co-writer of Sebastián Lelio's Disobedience and Pawel Pawlikowski's Oscar-winner Ida) stars Keira Knightley in the title role, Dominic West as her husband Willy, Fiona Shaw as her mother Sido, Denise Gough as her girlfriend Missy, Eleanor Tomlinson as Georgie Raoul-Duval, Robert Pugh as Colette's father Jules, and Dickie Beau as the mime Wague.

Julia Kristeva's trilogy Female Genius: Life, Madness, Words, costume designer Andrea Flesch, a connection between Coco Chanel and Colette, Maurice Chevalier's character in Vincente Minnelli's Gigi, Keira Knightley and the cat, a dog named Life, and the early influence and...