Keira Knightley is getting frank about her fame before “Pride & Prejudice.” The actress, who is celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Jane Austen adaptation this year, told Vanity Fair alongside former co-star Rosamund Pike that the film changed how she was viewed in the industry. Knightley had previously starred in “Pirates of the Caribbean” and “Bend It Like Beckham” before being Oscar-nominated for playing Elizabeth Bennett in “Pride & Prejudice.”
“Yes, it was pretty big for my career. If people will come up to me, it’ll be about that one,” Knightley said of the film. “‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ had already come out, but I think in the public consciousness, I was seen as a terrible actress. But I had this phenomenally big success with ‘Pirates.’ And I think this [‘Pride & Prejudice’] was the first one that was a phenomenally big success, but was also critically acclaimed.”
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She continued, “So I remember it coming out maybe the same year, maybe around the same time as ‘Pirates 2.’ And I got the worst reviews ever for that, and then also being nominated for an Oscar at the same time — it was, in my 21-year-old head, quite confusing.”
Knightley also recalled being 17 when “Bend It Like Beckham” was released. “I got terrible reviews for it — or at least the ones I remember, or the ones that, in your 17-year-old brain, actually sink in,” she said. “Of course, it’s only the ones that are negative. So I think it [‘Pride & Prejudice’] was the first time that it had been unequivocally positive, right? All of those voices of self-doubt are so loud when you are in your teens or 20s. But in an adult brain that’s got a lot of experience, you can kind of go, ‘You know what? It’s okay. Today may not be my day, but tomorrow it might be better, and we’re going to try our best.’ And you can kind of talk yourself down off the edge.”
Knightley previously told The Times that 2005 was the year that was “making and breaking” her career, with both the “Pirates of the Caribbean” sequel and “Pride & Prejudice” being released. “It’s a funny thing when you have something that was making and breaking you at the same time,” she said. “I was seen as shit because of them, and yet because they did so well I was given the opportunity to do the films that I ended up getting Oscar nominations for. They were the most successful films I’ll ever be a part of and they were the reason that I was taken down publicly. So they’re a very confused place in my head.”
