Keira loves period dramas

The appeal of period dramas, Keira said, is the fresh perspective that comes from looking back and seeing where we’ve come from.

“Breathing life back into what is done is like resurrecting the dead,” she said. “I find my imagination just going wild. I’m thinking, ‘God, let’s bring them back and learn from them.’”

That’s the kind of thinking that comes naturally to Knightley, given the family in which she grew up. Her father is actor Will Knightley, her mother is a playwright and her older brother is stage actor Caleb Knightley. By the time she was 3, Keira was already pestering her parents to let her get an agent. It took three more years for them to agree, but thereafter she began to win small parts in TV dramas. At 12 she went to Hollywood to audition.

“I was convinced that no one would ever hire me,” she recalled. “I was also worried. I kept thinking, ‘Why aren’t you at school doing exams?’ I was so pissed off about missing school that, when I showed up, the producers thought I had real attitude. “Turns out that’s what they wanted to cast.” Her first noteworthy role was in Star Wars: The Phantom Menace (1999) as Sabe, handmaiden and decoy to Padme Amidala (Natalie Portman). She didn’t get to talk, though, because her dialogue was dubbed by Portman. “It turned out I was a ringer for Natalie Portman and was hired basically as her stand-in,” Knightley said. “Occasionally I was used in the back of shots, which was still thrilling.”

Her breakthrough performance came in Bend It Like Beckham. “The next few years I basically lived on a film set,” she said, “and life became a bit of a blur.” Bend It Like Beckham led to her being cast in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Back Pearl and in sequels in 2006, 2007 and 2017 and other films. She’s received two Oscar nominations – as Best Actress for Pride & Prejudice and as Best Supporting Actress for The Imitation Game. She doesn’t really claim credit for either. “I’ve always said that any performance that has worked has been the result of a collaboration of many people,” Knightley explained. “Movies are a conversation.”