- Title: A Life in Pictures 2018: Keira Knightley on acting
- Date: 17th December 2018
- Summary: A Life in Pictures
- Description:Keira Knightley was interviewed by Jason Solomons for BAFTA's A Life in Pictures series at their Piccadilly headquarters in London, U.K. on Friday 17 December 2018. JS: Were you getting better as an actress? What were you doing to get better as an actress? Were you training, were you having lessons, were you doing coaching? The roles were coming thick and fast, it seemed you were working all the time. KK: I was just working all the time. I was watching people, I wasn?t doing classes, I didn?t have the time. I was literally going back to back to back film. I was desperately trying to pick up anything I could pick up from anyone. And not particularly picking it up, I mean somewhere before then I did a film called?oh God I?ve forgotten?The Jacket. JS: With Adrian Brody. KK: With Adrian Brody, yes, and I remember watching him and just not?I couldn?t figure out how the camera would get closer and he?d get more relaxed and I just couldn?t figure out how that happened. And everyone says, ?acting is relaxation, acting is relaxation?? You f *king try it! And the more you try and relax, the more you go, ?oh God I?m feeling really tense.? And then again, Judi Dench in that? Actually, you know what she gave me in that? She forgot her lines. And she couldn?t remember them, it was just a couple of lines, and there?s a big scene in Pride and Prejudice, I think, where we have a big fight and she just couldn?t remember it and she was getting really frustrated. And it was sort of as a nineteen year-old one of the most amazing things to see, because it was the understanding that you can?t be perfect all the time and still it cuts together and it?s absolutely brilliant. And she would go back on a particular part that she couldn?t quite remember and she?d just do it again and again and again but seeing somebody of that, you know, that might, make mistakes, I think that was one of the most important lessons of that point. Not necessarily that I picked it up at that point but that you go ?oh actually mistakes are fine.? JS: You can learn from them and pick yourself up from them. KK: Yeah and if you?re trying to be perfect the whole time then you just plateau and you?re not alive in the moment. JS: Do you think there was pressure to be perfect because you were such a big star and so important for the British film industry, for the people in this room, for BAFTA. You get built up quite quickly to be perfect on- and off-screen. KK: Yes. Which is always?it?s never going to work. It doesn?t exist, perfection, so it was never going to work. But yes I think I was absolutely stuck in that young girl thing of I?d been a straight A student, I?d been top of the class, I?d never had a detention, I was absolutely on set every day on time, I?d done my research, I knew my words?desperately, that desperation for the A the entire time. And you know, life comes crumbling down and you find out that?s not how it works and it?s kind of impossible, but that takes a while. This was my period, this little bit, of going ?oh f k it?s crumbling, I don?t know what to do.? JS: People were weirdly nasty about you. KK: There was a lot of very nasty stuff. I think at the same time I had this out, Pirates of the Caribbean 2 was coming out and that was not?I didn?t see it, but I hear the reviews for me weren?t great, and Pirates of the Caribbean 3 the reviews for me definitely weren?t great, so you know it was a really funny time that I had these films that were Oscar-nominated and were seen as being brilliant and it was all seen as being great, and on the other side I had these films that were commercially just doing brilliantly and yet I was also seen as being sh t and my body was?I was getting I don?t know, modelling contracts where you?re being told you?re beautiful, but at the same time I?ve got major papers saying actually her body should come with a health warning because she?s sick and she?s anorexic and she?s making other people sick and she?s disgusting and you have ?her face is beautiful,? then you have ?her face is disgusting and her mouth looks like a bangle,? and everything was really extreme. Atonement I was twenty-one and you?re suddenly in the middle of all this stuff and the world went definitely crazy. JS: And you did pay attention to it in a way. It seeped through to you. KK: You can?t not, at twenty-one. I mean you?re becoming at twenty-one and all you really want to do is fit in. So it?s impossible I think for anyone not to take it on. And of course if you are the A or the A student and you?re the girl and you?ve been taught that you?ve got to be perfect, all you want to do is please absolutely everybody, but when you?re working with such?you can?t, you know, you can?t be thinner and fatter at the same time.
- Collection: BAFTA
- Genre:Entertainment
- Producer:BAFTA
- Keywords: BAFTA; British Academy of Film & Television; A Life in Pictures; 2018; Keira Knightley; 195 Piccadilly; Celebrity; Event; Arrives; Showbiz; Arts; Entertainment; Pirates of the Caribbean; acting
- City: London
- Country: United Kingdom
- Transmission Date:17/12/2018
- Decade: 2010s