For years, he conducted interviews with Harvey, gathering material about her reckless youth and adventures with her bounty-hunting compatriots, Ed and Choco (played in the film by Rourke and Venezuelan newcomer Ramirez). A couple of writers took a crack at screenplays but they felt too conventional to Scott. Finally, he hooked up with writer-director Richard Kelly, hot off his cult hit Donnie Darko. Kelly spun the basic elements of Harvey's life into a completely invented, zigzagging story involving the Mob, a complicated con gone wrong, and reality television. ''I thought the story should be a journey into the heart of darkness,'' Kelly says a little grandly. ''I see it as a big satire, in a way, not only of action films but of where American culture is headed.''
Scott brought the project to Twentieth Century Fox, where he and his brother have a first-look deal, but, in the wake of his last film, the critically panned Denzel Washington revenge movie Man on Fire, the studio balked. ''They said, 'Oh f---, he wants to do this now?''' says Scott. ''I think they were a little scared of me and the material.'' Scott sent the script to New Line, which put up $15 million for domestic distribution rights and gave him free creative rein. ''We thought it was unique and would stand out, and it was not that expensive,'' says New Line production president Toby Emmerich. He laughs. ''We were probably too naive to be scared.''
Ever since seeing Knightley in Pirates of the Caribbean, Scott had envisioned the actress playing Harvey: ''For me, Keira was Domino. There's a little bit of Princess Di in there and a little bit of a football thug.'' When he sent the script to her, though, it took her some time to wrap her mind around it. ''I'd never heard of Domino Harvey,'' she says. ''I thought, That's too crazy a story to be real. It wasn't until I met Tony that he went, 'No, I can introduce you to the girl.'''
The role took Knightley far out of her comfort zone. Working with guns freaked her out (''I f---ing hated it — I'd never make it in the army''), while casting her own body double for the nude scenes was simply mortifying (''I've never cast a bum before. Do I introduce myself? Is it rude to stare at their bottoms?''). But while Domino couldn't have been a more radical departure from the film she'd just shot, Pride & Prejudice, she was happy switching things up: ''I don't see the point in making films that are going to be exactly the same as each other.''
Knowing how Harvey had wrestled with her demons, few involved in Domino were shocked when news broke of her overdose. Still, her death in June hit Scott hard. Says Rourke: ''I don't think I realized how deeply Tony felt about her until he got up to speak at the funeral. He could hardly talk. He was crushed.''
After Harvey's passing, questions suddenly swirled around the movie. It was too late to shoot a new ending. But within a few days, New Line did announce it was moving the film's release date earlier, from Thanksgiving to August. Scott insisted he couldn't get the film ready that quickly, so they settled on Oct. 14. He also had misgivings about ''trying to capitalize off of someone dying. It just felt like bad taste in a way.''
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