The director who changed Keira Knightley’s life: “A major thing for me”
There are few actors who have as timeless a face as Keira Knightley. She’s played a beloved Jane Austen character, a tragic Russian 19th-century ‘It Girl’, a tragic yet headstrong post-war Cambridge student, a charismatic and controversial 18th-century duchess, a Y2K football-obsessed teen, a pirate, a handmaiden to the queen of a distant future alien world…the list goes on.
The first to notice the time-hopping capabilities of Knightley’s acting range was director Joe Wright. After working on a number of lauded miniseries and shorts, the Londoner chose the young up-and-coming star to play the lead in his feature film directorial debut: An adaptation of Jane Austen’s classic novel Pride & Prejudice.
The movie was a success for both of them, with Knightley being nominated for ‘Best Actress’ at the 78th Academy Awards, at the time the third-youngest actor to have been up for the award. It also spearheaded a new working relationship between the pair, with Knightley taking the lead in two more of Wright’s period projects, with the 2007 post-war set tragi-drama Atonement and 2012’s film adaptation of Leo Tolstoy’s famed Anna Karenina.
In a joint interview with Rosamund Pike for Vanity Fair, Knightley shared how much Wright’s support has impacted her career and shaped her as an actor. “We worked together three times; I was a teenager the first time, and then sort of in my late 20s by the end of our working relationship. So I think the confidence I learned, and just the fact that at that point somebody was believing in my ability, was such a major thing for me at that point in my life. And that he really stuck up for me,” she recalled.
Pike, who was also cast in Pride & Prejudice along with a gas mask-clad Donald Sutherland, concurred that Knightley’s work with Wright was her favourite too. “I loved Anna Karenina,” she added, “I thought that was just a blinding film. It was absolutely stunning because it was so layered. And the whole thing of the theatre just worked really, really well for me. I thought it was phenomenal. But then, Lizzy [Elizabeth Bennet from Pride & Prejudice played by Knightley], my sister, I still think it’s one of the greatest performances ever. I can’t believe that they’re daring to do another one!”
In the same interview, Knightley added that her lauded work with Wright, juxtaposed with her slated work on light-hearted comedies such as Bend It Like Beckham and the blockbuster Disney franchise Pirates of the Caribbean, was hard to comprehend so early on in her career. “If people will come up to me, it’ll be about [Pride & Prejudice],” she shared. “Pirates of the Caribbean had already come out, but I think in the public consciousness, I was seen as a terrible actress.”
She elaborated on how being on opposing sides of the time spectrum of both movies also yielded mixed reviews about her acting abilities, with one being lauded and the other catching shade. “But I had this phenomenally big success with Pirates. And I think this was the first one that was a phenomenally big success, but was also critically acclaimed. 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,” she admitted.
Wright is working on another period piece: a series based on the non-fiction book Empty Mansions about the elderly, wealthy recluse Huguette Clark. No word has been made on casting as of yet. Perhaps the magic of a future link-up between Wright and Knightley will finally win the latter her deserved accolades.
