Keira Knightley

For those of us who make a cottage industry of interpreting and reinterpreting their careers well into our 30s and 40s, the ascendancy of Keira Knightley from the sprightly, 17-year-old star of 2002’s Bend it like Beckham to a best actress nomination for Pride and Prejudice a mere three years later, and to further acclaim in last year’s Atonement and The Duchess, can produce feelings that range between open admiration to awestruck envy. Throw in her astonishing good looks, and it’s easy to let the scales weigh in favor of the latter, at least among certain XX-chromosomal staff members.

Born on March 26, 1985 in Middlesex England to parents with experience as both actors and playwrights, it’s fair to say that Knightley was destined for the stage from the beginning. At the age of three she made a request of her mother for an agent (which was agreed to three years later, with the provision that she extend her grade schoolstudies even through the summer), and in retrospect that was a not particularly outrageous requests, because she began to get parts at an astonishingly early age. She appeared in a number of European made-for-TV movies and other shows, but it was her first Hollywood role alongside Natalie Portman in 1999’s Star Wars: Episode One – The Phantom Menace (she played Portman’s handmaiden) that brought her face and persona to the attention of agents in the U.S.. The role was a very small one, to be sure, but it was sufficient to get the ball rolling and helped Knightley secure roles in films like The Hole (2001) and a 2002 TV version of Dr. Zhivago.
In 2002, Knightley finally found her breakthrough role in the massively popular British film Bend it like Beckham. It might have been the incongruity of her character—playing a rough, tough, soccer star rather than the willowy, vulnerable teens she was accustomed to portraying—that helped make the film such a hit, both in the UK and across the pond.
Just one year later, Knightley starred alongside Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, and the rest is simply cinematic history. Two more Pirates movies followed thereafter, along with starring turns in Love Actually (2003) King Arthur (2004), Domino (2005), Pride and Prejudice (2005) and Atonement (2007) as well as no fewer than four films scheduled for either postproduction or release in 2009, including King Lear, The Beautiful and the Damned, London Boulevard and Last Night.
Famously open and honest in interviews (after promotional photos from King Arthur depicted her with digitally enhanced breasts, Knightley decried the move in the press, and demanded that she not be digitally altered in any way in the promotion of The Duchess), she has tackled the rumors surrounding her supposed anorexia repeatedly, though recent photos showing a deeply skinny Knightley and boyfriend Rupert Friend cavorting on the beach didn’t help matters much. Our take is that there are very few anorexics who manage to sport a six pack, so she may be one of those murderously lucky few who manage being naturally thin and muscular at the same time.
As we go to press, two additional rumors of an upcoming role were filtering down from the reporters: she seems set to be cast as Eliza Doolittle in a remake of the 1964 film My Fair Lady (based upon the stageplay Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw). At first, critics were surprised that Knightley—who has made something of an industry of playing in period films—would agree to yet another dated starring turn, but the juiciness of the character was likely difficult to turn down.
The second rumor surrounds yet another remake, this time of the 1970s classic Saturday Night Fever. Thoughts are that she will star in the film along side Pirates costar Orlando Bloom, but details are still sketchy.
We asked Knightley how she manages to keep grounded, even amidst such a meteoric rise to superstardom, how she managed to overcome her childhood dyslexia and how one of the most beautiful women in the world manages to keep her head…and her sanity.

Fred Topel for Industry: When did you first want to act?
Keira Knightley: At age three, I believe…so they tell me. I asked for an agent when I was three. I obviously don’t remember it. But I asked for an agent when I was three and I got one when I was six. I never wanted to do anything else, which isn’t necessarily a good thing. I think that’s actually really sad. But no, I’ve never wanted to be anything else.

Industry: How was it to grow up in a show business family, and how did that affect your decision to become an actress?
KK: Show business is not particularly a phrase that I like. I lived with a playwright and an actor. I think it was amazing. I very definitely grew up around stories, art and people who really believed that they could make a difference through their art form, which is a very exciting thing to see, as a child. I’ve never grown up with anything else, so I don’t know what it’s like to grow up with other parents. I’m very close to mine.

Industry: You were diagnosed with dyslexia as a youngster. What was dealing with that like?
KK: Yes, I was diagnosed with dyslexia when I was six, but I was never statemented [A educational term in the UK for one who has been given a decree of special educational needs by the local education authority]. Statementing happens when you’re 11, and when I was 11, they decided that I was fine. I think that had a lot to do with acting. My headmaster, at the time, said to my parents, “You need to find a carrot to dangle in front of her to make her work harder,” and the carrot they found was an agent and the promise that I could go for auditions if I kept my grades up. And, that seemed to work a treat. So, I’m all right.
Industry: Do you have to adjust your process on a smaller, intimate movie like Atonement, as opposed to a big-budget studio blockbuster like Pirates?
KK: You adjust your speed. You have less time to do things, which I like, actually. You do something like Pirates, which is obviously technical—it’s about explosions, it’s about action—and that, as everybody will tell you, takes a long time to get right. When you’re doing something like Atonement, you have less time to do it. You have less money, so you have to do it quicker. But, it’s a much more intense working experience, which I think, for any actor, is what you’re looking for, because you want to be living in that moment…the excitement of finding those emotions. On your big, explosive films, the film set is quite a technical space, as it should be. But, on a film like Atonement, the space was very much the actors’, which was enjoyable, absolutely.

Industry: Your part in Atonement is such an iconic performance; did you know it would be that way?
KK: F$#@, wow. Thanks! That’s very nice…I think. No, that’s not why you make a film. You don’t go, “Ooh, I’m doing an iconic film.” But, I think it was an incredibly well written script and well written characters, both from the script and, obviously, from the book. It’s very difficult to find good characters in films, particularly female characters. There aren’t that many. And, a lot of the time, actresses get critiqued on the fact that the roles just aren’t there. So, what you often try to do is really take something out of the page that isn’t written on it. With this, it was there. It was very much there—in the book and in the script. And so I was incredibly lucky to get the part. What was fascinating about it, to me, is that you’ve got this character…quite often, we have characters that are very black or white. They’re good or they’re bad. And, these ones aren’t. They’ve got layers to them. I think that [Cecilia] is a good person, but she’s just behaving badly. She’s got very obvious flaws in her personality that are not particularly nice traits, but that still doesn’t mean that she’s a bad person.

Industry: You’ve played so many strong women. How much of yourself do you draw upon for those roles?
KK: I never draw from personal experience. I draw from imagination. We all have the same core emotions, and what interests me is trying to get into the heads of these characters. I wonder why this person would react to this situation in this way. So, I don’t draw from myself. It is purely imagination, really.

Industry: Are you particularly drawn to period pieces?
KK: At the moment, it simply has been that the stories that have interested me most have been set in the past. I’m not going to read an amazing piece set 200 years ago, and go, “Ooh, I can’t do that because I’ll be in a period piece.” I’m very selfish about my choices. I’m in an incredibly lucky position, where I can actually choose what I do, and it has to be something that interests me. If it doesn’t interest me, then I’m not going to be interesting in it, and it won’t be interesting to watch, so there’s absolutely no point. So, it just has happened that the stories have been set in the past. There’s been no plan. I don’t have a plan. So, hopefully, there will be a contemporary piece in a minute or two. I just need to find the right script.

Industry: How was it to work with John Maybury (director, The Edge of Love)? His work is appreciated, but he’s not mainstream.
KK: I don’t think he ever will be particularly mainstream. He’s an artist, very definitely. Love is the Devil is one of my favorite films. I think it’s extraordinary. I worked with him on The Jacket, and then again on The Edge of Love, and I love working with him. I love his mind. It’s a weird place, but it’s a wonderful place. You don’t work with John to make a film like Pirates of the Caribbean, you work for something very different, but it’s equally as exciting.

Industry: You’ve been lauded for your fashion sense. How does fashion affect your life?
KK: [Laughs] Have I? It doesn’t. Not really. It must be a fluke.

Industry: You’ve had a bit of a hiatus from the big-budget Hollywood studio machine. Can you see yourself going back into that?
KK: Yeah, of course. I hope so, if there’s something that interests me. Possibly, I should think, because it would be very savvy, business wise, of me to go, “Yes, I’m going to do this, and then I’m going to do a big one.” But, I can’t think like that. It has to be what interests me, at the time. I think it is partly because Pirates did take such a long time, and I was within that for such a long time, that I’ve just craved something that’s different. For me, the point of acting has been to change, as much as possible, and I’ve been very fortunate to be able to do that. So, hopefully, I’ll find something fun and ridiculous and explosive, and I’ll enjoy doing it. But, I just haven’t found it yet.

Industry: Well, Domino had some pretty serious explosions. And some serious language. Did you develop a potty mouth doing this role?
KK: I have a potty mouth anyway, I’m British. If anything, I had to tone down my language.

Industry: Do you take roles so that you can play in a movie what you wouldn’t do in real life?
KK: Yeah, probably. I don’t know. I love looking at other characters, and love looking at different walks of life. I tend to think that one of the only ways that you can really be a totally impartial observer is actually if you’re never really tried it. [In Domino], I found it fascinating to go into all the strip clubs and hear all the stories about the mescaline trips and everything else. I like the stories, but I don’t think I would like the reality.

Industry: Were you conflicted about the nudity in Domino?
KK: You know what, I’m European, so as far as showing as much as I did, I don’t have that conservative , can’t-show-my-tit vibe. I found it extraordinarily liberating to be topless in the middle of the desert…marvelous. And as somebody else said, I just put on some sunscreen and I was ready to go.

Industry: How did you feel about all the gunplay in the film?
KK: The guns were the biggest challenge, definitely. I enjoy doing action sequences, but I was really surprised at how freaked out I was. The machine guns….I shot them the first time and got so freaked out that I burst into tears. It absolutely crippled me; I was in pieces. And everyone went, “Well, do you want another go?” and I said, “No, no, no. If I practice again I won’t be able to do it in the scene, so let’s just shoot it.”

Industry: Could you win a fight in real life?
KK: [Laughs] No. I’ll have people starting on me now. No, I couldn’t win a fight in real life. I might get one good one in…actually, no, I couldn’t.

Industry: Rumor has it that you’re a smoker….
KK: [Laughs] I don’t might taking my top off, and I do have the occasional glass of wine and the occasional cigarette, but no I don’t smoke on a regular basis.

Industry: Ever have a nightmare kissing scene?
KK: Not so far. You always carry mints in your pocket just for politeness and hope for the best, but no, it’s been all right so far.

Industry: As such a young person, how do you tap into playing older characters?
KK: To tell you the truth, I don’t think you need that specific life experience to be able to portray it. I think that whatever age you are, the emotions are the same. A lot of my experiences might have happened in school, but that doesn’t devalue the emotion I felt, and therefore the resources I’ve got to play from.

Industry: Has having all this money changed you?
KK: Well, I’m not as wealthy as I keep reading I am…or people tell me I am.

Industry: How do you spend your time off?
KK: There isn’t really any; I’m traveling so much. Just spending time with friends and family and drinking a good bottle of wine and having a chat. Which is always good.

Industry: With a life spent either traveling or on sets, do you ever get lonely?
KK: Yeah, but I think what’s incredible is that a group of people are thrown together who are all in a foreign land and don’t know each other and you get close incredibly quickly, and that’s lovely. Nine times out of ten, you don’t see them again, which is sad and beautiful at the same time. So, not really. I think there are always so many people around that you’ve always got some option. It’s easy to become close to people, but the nature of the business is that everybody just drifts off to other countries after that. Very rarely, you can all get together again, and what’s great about a press junket like this is that you get to see everyone again.

Look for Keira next in Last Night (alongside Industry’s October 2008 cover-star Eva Mendes), scheduled for a summer release.