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Keira Knightley was only 17 when she became a global star thanks to her role as Elizabeth Swann in Pirates of the Caribbeanin the summer of 2003. If she had already made a breakthrough in England thanks to Play it like Beckhamthe global success of Gore Verbinski's adventure blockbuster for Disney, also starring Johnny Depp and Orlando Bloom, made her a global star. An experience that she did not live very well, as she recounts in The Times of London on the occasion of the broadcast, this week on Netflix, of his action series Black Doves. A project very far from the period films that made it successful (Pride and Prejudice, Anna Karenina, The Duchess…).
“It's so weird to do something that builds you up and at the same time breaks you down, she explains about the first part of the sagaThe Curse of the Black Pearl. I was treated like shit because of those films, and at the same time, they did so well that it gave me some crazy opportunities. I was able to get other roles thanks to that, which were subsequently nominated for Oscars (she was selected in 2005 for Pride and prejudiceby Joe Wright, editor’s note). These are the most successful feature films of my entire career, but at the same time, it is because of them that I was so publicly belittled. They therefore have a particularly confused place in my mind.”
20 years ago, Pirates of the Caribbean propelled Keira Knightley to international stardom
The 39-year-old actress goes on to explain that she no longer plans to star in new franchises as huge as Pirates of the Caribbean, of which she participated fully in the first three parts, between 2003 and 2007, and for which she agreed to reappear in a cameo in Salazar's Revengein 2017..
“We spend a lot of time there, it represents entire years of your life, she justifies. And you have no control over what is filmed. Don't know how long you're going to film for? Nor precisely what you are filming.”
Keira also says she was very careful about all her actions outside of filming the saga.
“I had seen careers destroyed by paparazzi photos of stars leaving nightclubs drunk, for example. So much money had been bet on me at that time that if they had had a photo of me, it could have done a lot of damage. I didn't want to give the paparazzi any chance of getting that kind of image, so I stayed incredibly sober.
Words that fit with what she had already explained to Harper's Bazaar last year, when celebrating the 20th anniversary of the first part of Pirates of the Caribbean.
“I experienced quite an entry into adult life, quite extreme, experiencing fame at a very young age.. (…) Elizabeth was the object of all desire. Not that she didn't have some fight in her. But it was special, as a tomboy, to be seen as the complete opposite of who I was. (…) I felt constrained, blocked. I didn't know how to put it all together. I felt trapped in something I didn't understand. With my next roles, I wanted to free myself from that. (…) It's a strange place that women are supposed to hold, publicly, I've never been comfortable with that.”
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