Life can be difficult when you are in the spotlight. When you become famous overnight, you might even feel as if things are getting ahead of you and nobody knows this better than Keira Knightley.
When she appeared in the first Pirates movie, she was only 17 years old. She was starring in the movie along with Johnny Depp but things didn’t go well with her because of the leap into superstardom. In fact, she said that she had to go through “many years of therapy” after the movie.
You probably remember Keira Knightley as Elizabeth Swann, the woman who played along with Johnny Depp in the Pirates movie, The Curse of the Black Pearl. It made over $654 million worldwide after it was released in 2003.
Believe it or not, they didn’t have high expectations for the film and thought that it would fail quickly. It ended up being wildly popular and there are still other Pirates movies in the works.
When Keira Knightley spoke about being launched into the spotlight, she said: “I found it pretty horrific. I’m not an extrovert, so I found that level of scrutiny and that level of fame really hard.
“It was an age where you are becoming, you haven’t become, and you need to make mistakes. It’s a very precarious age, particularly for women.
“You’re in some ways still a child. It was traumatic, but it set up the rest of my career.”
She also says that she hopes her daughter does not get into acting. She would rather see her be an environmental lawyer or something spectacular but regardless of what she does, she will be supportive.
Another thing that the actress said is that she was hard on herself when she was starting on her career. She said: “I was never good enough. I was utterly single-minded. I was so ambitious. I was so driven.
“I was always trying to get better and better and improve, which is an exhausting way to live your life. Exhausting.
“I am in awe of my 22-year-old self, because I’d like a bit more of her back. And it’s only by not being like that any longer that I realise how extraordinary it was. But it does have a cost.”
Even though she had some difficult times, she wouldn’t change it at this point. She feels that her career is in place because of the movie and she has a level of fame that is less intense at this point.
The good thing is, that she’s able to deal with it now but at that time, she struggled and it cost her for a while.