Embroidered silk jacket with embellished cuffs, matching trousers, embellished wool gilet, all Chanel. White gold, rock crystal and diamond earrings, from a selection, Chanel Fine Jewellery. Photography: Boo George for Harper’s BAZAAR

Now, though, she is deep in research for a new project based on the bestselling sci-fi novel Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie, which is set to start shooting later in the year, pandemic permitting. “It’s about power. The questions within my character are, ‘What is the purpose of conquest? What are the motivations to rule?’ So I’m reading lots of books about dictators, and fantasising about intergalactic domination while I’m doing the washing-up and changing the baby’s nappy…” She is also deep into the audiobooks of Manda Scott’s Boudica series, which she has found particularly consoling in the wake of the death of Sarah Everard and the grim revelations of misogyny and sexual assault in schools revealed on the Everyone’s Invited forum. “Something very pagan and powerfully female feels nice to listen to right now,” she says.

Pearl-embroidered tweed dress, metal, pearl, glass and strass headband, both Chanel. Photography: Boo George for Harper’s BAZAAR

Knightley was brought up to be a feminist by her mother, the playwright Sharman MacDonald, the author of When I was a Girl, I used to Scream and Shout…. Her interest, she says, “was hugely encouraged by the fact that I was very sporty as a kid, but being a footballer wasn’t an option for me, whereas it was – in their heads– for all of the boys. That really struck me from a very young age.” Throughout her career, the characters she has portrayed have been notably strong and independent, from her breakout role, playing to type as a football-mad teenager in Bend it Like Beckham in 2002, to an unforgettable Lizzy Bennet in Joe Wright’s 2005 take on Pride & Prejudice, the iconoclastic French writer Colette in 2018, a whistleblower in Official Secrets, and most recently, the activist Sally Alexander in Misbehaviour.