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Keira Knightleyis opening up about a period where she “never felt comfortable” with how she was publicly perceived after rising to fame as a teenager in films likeBend it Like Beckham(2002) andPirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl(2003).
In a new interview withHarper’s Bazaar U.K.published Tuesday, Knightley, 37, called her maturation from adolescence into adulthood “an extreme landing because of the experience of fame at a very early age.”
“There’s a funny place where women are meant to sit, publicly, and I never felt comfortable with that. It was a big jolt,” she told the outlet, recalling “being judged on what I was projecting” in her films,especially as herPiratescharacter Elizabeth Swann.
“She was the object of everybody’s lust,” Knightley said of the character, who went toe-to-toe withJohnny Depp’s Jack Sparrow and grew romantically entangled withOrlando Bloom’s Will Turner throughout the blockbuster series. “Not that she doesn’t have a lot of fight in her. But it was interesting coming from being really tomboyish to getting projected as quite the opposite.”
“I felt very constrained. I felt very stuck,” the actress added of how the part — and the fame associated with it — affected her. “So the roles afterwards were about trying to break out of that.”
Knightley recalled that she felt “felt like I was caged in a thing I didn’t understand” as she rose to fame and described the years afterPiratesfirst released as “a very tricky five-year window.” That period of time includedLove Actually(2003), an Oscar nomination in 2006 for her starring role inPride & Prejudice(2005) and each of the three originalPiratesmovies.
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“I was incredibly hard on myself. I was never good enough. I was utterly single-minded. I was so ambitious. I was so driven,” Knightley toldHarper’s Bazaar U.K.“I was always trying to get better and better and improve, which is an exhausting way to live your life. Exhausting.”
Now a Hollywood veteran who takes fewer roles, Knightley, who next stars in Hulu’s upcoming dramaBoston Strangler, identified “burnout” as a side effect of the intensity with which she approached her early career.
Boston Stranglerbegins streaming on Hulu March 17.
source: people.com
