KEIRA KNIGHTLEY AND JOE WRIGHT: A certain simpatico

“ON-SCREEN chemistry between two actors is rare,” says “Atonement” star Keira Knightley. “I think creative chemistry between actor and director is even more rare -- and for some reason Joe and I have that.”

The Joe of whom she speaks is, of course, Joe Wright, who directed Knightley in “Atonement” and 2005’s “Pride & Prejudice,” for which she received a lead actress Oscar nomination. Wright chalks up the bond with his leading lady to a kind of shorthand the two have developed. “I can look at her or she could look at me and we’d know what each other was thinking -- in terms of the filmmaking,” he says.

And though neither actress nor director received an individual Oscar nomination for their collaboration this time around, the resulting work earned a best picture nod. What makes their success together all the more intriguing is that Wright didn’t initially even want Knightley for “Pride & Prejudice.”

Says Knightley, “It was [director] John Maybury, who I’d worked with on ‘The Jacket’ -- who also [initially] didn’t want me -- who spoke to him and said, ‘Don’t just go with “Pirates,” I think there might be something in there,’ ” she recalls. “Joe watched what I did on that film and picked up all my ticks, which was fascinating to suddenly have somebody who paid that much attention.”

Wright’s reliance on an intense two- to three-week rehearsal period is key to getting inside each other’s head.

“You talk about your personal experiences . . . and the emotions the character’s going through, and you talk and talk and talk,” Knightley says. “He believes you have to make a complete fool out of yourself in front of everybody, so he got us all to do dancing lessons for ‘Atonement,’ the fox trot, even though there’s no dancing in it.

“You feel like a company, like a team, and I love being part of a company; it should be collaborative,” she says. On “Atonement,” “we were all living together . . . watching football after [filming] and having a party every weekend.”

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-- Mark Salisbury