It’s often said to ‘start them young,’ and Keira Knightley seems to have embraced this advice quite early.
Born in London, the 39-year-old actress caught the acting bug shortly after toddlerhood, insisting on having an agent at the tender age of three. She had to wait until she was six to see that dream realized.
Under the guide of her stage actor parents, Will Knightley and Sharman Macdonald, she began securing minor roles in TV dramas and amateur theater—fields far removed from the typical playground antics of her peers.
By the age of 12, Knightley had landed a significant role as Natalie Portman’s double in “Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace,” propelling her into more prominent projects.
Her acting career continued to flourish as she starred in the Disney movie “Princess of Thieves” at 16 and secured roles in “The Hole,” “Doctor Zhivago,” “Pure,” and “Bend It Like Beckham.”
While Knightley’s teenage years were packed with acting jobs instead of typical teenage pursuits, it seems that many have yet to realize just how young she was during these times.
This fact has recently stunned social media users who are just now learning her age during her breakthrough performance in “Pirates of the Caribbean” in 2003.
A movie enthusiast expressed their astonishment on social media platform X, stating: “Keira Knightley being like 17 when she filmed Pirates of the Caribbean shakes me to my core.”
Another person commented: “This really just impresses upon me how f**king talented she is as an actress. Like god damn girl you haven’t even been alive long enough to have this type of range.”
A third remarked: “She looked 25 at 17 and stayed looking 25 to this very day.”
Meanwhile, a fourth shared: “I’ve never been able to watch it the same one I learned that. My brain is constantly going, ‘she’s 17!!’ And then I think about what I was doing at 17….or 35.”
If it hasn’t sunk in yet, Knightley was only 17 years old when she portrayed Elizabeth Swann alongside Johnny Depp and Orlando Bloom in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl.
While it might seem like a dream role for any teenager, Knightley later revealed that the sudden fame from the film was not as glamorous as it appeared.
She disclosed that she went through ‘many years of therapy’ to cope with the rapid ascent to stardom, which she found ‘pretty horrific’.
In a 2018 interview with Variety, Knightley opened up about her difficulties with fame: “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,” she explained.
“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.”
Knightley revisited the impact of her early success in a 2019 conversation with The Telegraph. She shared that she suffered a mental breakdown at 22, following the intense public attention from her roles in “Pirates of the Caribbean” and “Love Actually.”
She was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and took a year off to recover, prompting her decision to avoid mainstream films.
“I knew I didn’t want to do big-budget films anymore because the fame that came with them I just couldn’t handle,” Knightley remarked, noting that smaller roles offered her a “level of fame that’s much less intense.”
Reflecting on her past choices, she admitted, “If I was presented with the script for Pirates of the Caribbean today, I’d be wrong to do so, but I’d probably say no,” indicating her reluctance to participate in the franchise’s confirmed reboot by producer Jerry Bruckheimer.
She also expressed a strong desire that her two young daughters, Edie and Delilah, whom she shares with her husband James Righton, do not pursue acting careers, saying she “really, really, really hopes” they avoid following in her footsteps.
