Keira Knightley and Joe Wright team up again for "Anna Karenina"

The two share a comfort level that leads to some pretty playful moments.

A good actress and a good director know how to kiss up to each other.

"It feels like we've grown up together," says the filmmaker, 40, whose London home is just a few doors down from where Knightley, 27, resides. "We've seen each other through some good times and some bad times, and that's a lovely process. I like the idea of working with someone who has seen me at my weakest and also with success."

Knightley and Wright worked together on two previous movies, 2005's 'Pride & Prejudice' (for which Knightley was nominated for an Academy Award) and 2007's 'Atonement.' "I like to think of them as being fantasies," Wright says. "I'm not interested in historical re-enactment. They allow us to dream and think in more expressive ways."

Knightley's expression appears to be "see what I have to put up with?"

Knightley says: "We do argue occasionally and, like siblings, you kind of know that you have to get over the argument because you're not going to stop being siblings. And so it's never the end of the world when you argue. There is a trust in the fact that, underneath, anything that is going on, you're still going to love each other."

Knightley tries to play it straight for at least one photo.

That's enough, Joe.

On the home front, each has a partner. Wright married musician Anoushka Shankar in 2010. Their son, Zubin, turns 2 in February. Knightley became engaged to her own musician, James Righton of the Klaxons, in May.

Anything for a laugh.

This show biz stuff is hard work!