The failed audition that haunts Keira Knightley: “Most embarrassing experience of my life”
Some actors wait their whole lives in the hopes of getting in touching distance of Hollywood success, but Keira Knightley was just 12 years old when she landed a role in Star Wars: Episode One – The Phantom Menace, all thanks to her uncanny resemblance to Natalie Portman, who played Padme.
The young British actor ultimately stepped back from the bright lights of Hollywood following the release of George Lucas’ film, however, opting for productions on her home turf instead, like Bend It Like Beckham. She couldn’t stay away for long, though, and a role in another huge blockbuster, The Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, soon followed. It seemed like she was equally at home in a mega franchise as she was in a British indie, and that’s really the key to her star power.
Since then, Knightley has alternated between huge movies and considerably more lowkey ones, but despite the overwhelming success she has experienced as the star of everything from Pride and Prejudice to A Dangerous Method, the actor has still faced some pretty embarrassing failures. That’s just the nature of being an actor – sometimes an audition will go horribly wrong, and all you take away from the experience is a deeply shameful feeling of having completely fucked up.
This was the case for a teenage Knightley, who put herself forward for a role that required her to be able to sing. The only problem was that she couldn’t – at all. That doesn’t stop some actors, though; look at all the instances where actors have been dubbed by better singers or autotune has fixed their flat notes. Unfortunately, this wasn’t enough to help Knightley secure her first major leading role, and she’s now haunted by the memory of a disastrous audition that left her feeling rather humiliated.
It was the early 2000s, and the role of Christine Daaé in The Phantom of the Opera was up for grabs. A blockbuster adaptation of the musical was in the works from Joel Schumacher, and Knightley wanted to be part of it. She immediately experienced a crushing rejection, though, one that she called the “singularly most embarrassing experience of my entire life” via The Irish Examiner.
She explained, “I absolutely knew I couldn’t sing it. But I went in, and they were like: ‘No, no, anybody can sing. Just try it out.’ And I sang and the guy went, ‘You really can’t sing, can you?’” Ouch.
So, Knightley of course didn’t get the part – Emmy Rossum did. The movie ended up earning several Oscar nominations and fared well at the box office, but everything worked out in Knightley’s favour because her failure to secure the part in The Phantom of the Opera allowed her to take on Pirates of the Caribbean that same year instead. The film truly kickstarted the actor’s career, and she has since reprised her role in the sequels various times, with the franchise becoming one of the most successful in cinema history.
It seems like Knightley had the last laugh, although she’ll forever be haunted by the brutal criticism that she just can’t sing – at all.
