In her new film, Oscar-nominated actress Keira Knightley plays an Elizabethan courtier who is unsuccessfully reunited with her lover when the couple gets trapped inside an unwieldy maze. The 10-minute short, which co-stars its director, Stuart Pearson Wright, was filmed on a $23,000 budget and shot in just one day. But the real kicker: Knightley did it all for free.

In a new interview with the Independent, Knightley explains why she waived her normal fee to take part in this relatively obscure project. "I loved the idea of doing something that was purely creative, weird and wonderful and not a commercial venture," she said. "Ideas were e-mailed and then developed at Stuart's studio over cupcakes and tea and under the skeleton of his dog and a film piece was decided on: a collision of our worlds."