Keira Knightley
Keira Knightley
Keira Christina Knightley is a British actress. She began acting as a child on television and made her film debut in 1995. She had a supporting role as Sabé in Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menaceand her first significant role came in the psychological horror film The Hole. She gained widespread recognition in 2002 after co-starring in the film Bend It Like Beckham and achieved international fame in 2003 after appearing as Elizabeth Swann in the Pirates of...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionMovie Actress
Date of Birth26 March 1985
CityLondon, England
I went from everyone saying, "She-can't-act-she-can't-act-she-can't-act," to an Oscar nomination. So there was something quite sublime about that!
If I don't do this film. I'll be acting in corsets for the next 20 years.
The thing about great fictional characters from literature, and the reason that they're constantly turned into characters in movies, is that they completely speak to what makes people human. They're full of flaws as much as they are full of heroics. I think the reason that people love them and hate them so much is because, in some way, they always see a mirror of themselves in them, and you can always understand them on some level. Sometimes it's a terrifyingly dark mirror that's held up.
My doctor was like, 'Any questions?' And I was like, 'Yes! When can I drink please?!' I just want a margarita.
I don’t know what happened through the ’80s, ’90s, and ’00s that took feminism off the table, that made it something that women weren’t supposed to identify with and were supposed to be ashamed of. Feminism is about the fight for equality between the sexes, with equal respect, equal pay, and equal opportunity. At the moment we are still a long way off that.
I always feel like I'm the one with everything to prove.
All through my life what I've loved doing is watching movies. I love the escapism of film, I love stories. So it is incredible to be able to be in them as much as I am, to see them from the first stitch in a costume to the end product.
Everybody can take a good picture. Everybody is interesting. Everyone has an interesting face. Some people are more difficult or more nervous or more tired. When you do a movie, you have action, you're talking, you're moving. You don't see the camera. Taking a picture with a photographer, you don't talk, it's more difficult than in a movie for your body to relax, to be yourself.
I think women's bodies are a battleground and photography is partly to blame. Our society is so photographic now, it becomes more difficult to see all of those different varieties of shape.
I think you've got to take the risks. There's no point playing it safe, because either you'll get bored or the audiences will get bored. Sometimes, you're going to make mistakes, and that's fine, but you have to take the risks. I think Pirates is one of the prime examples of that with Johnny Depp's performance, and part of the reason that people love it so much is that you watch it and go, "Gutsy, really gutsy!"
In the movie, you're moving, you have personality, you don't have to be great looking.
You watch him playing Jack Sparrow, and he's loving it, and he's loving being in that world. He's still excited by it. Sometimes, he'll even say, 'Was that OK?' And I'm thinking, 'You're Johnny Depp man, you know that's OK!' But he doesn't. He's still going to [director] Gore [Verbinski] and asking for help. It's a privilege to see the human side of Johnny. It's really exciting.
I'm ... incredibly open with my mates. Or even people I just meet.
The most important thing in playing any character is not judging.