Keira Knightley has revealed that she was convinced that Jerry Bruckheimer was going to fire her from Pirates of the Caribbean.
Knightley took on the role of Elizabeth Swan in the 2003 movie, and it was the film that catapulted the seventeen year old to superstardom. However, she was believed that she would not last long in Hollywood and that she would be fired for her first blockbuster role.
And while Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl was a huge hit - and Knightley would go on to appear in two more films in he franchise - the actress says that she did struggle to adapt to her life in Hollywood and the criticism that came with it.
She told the New York Post newspaper’s Page Six column: “I remember going to Hollywood . . . I had only packed a small bag because I was convinced they were going to fire me.”
“Being a teenager that’s come out of sort of big blockbuster films, there was a lot of criticism.
“People saying, ‘She’s s**t, she can’t act, she can’t do it. What’s the point? She’s pouty, she’s thin.’ “Being a teenager, you do read it all . . . you go, ‘Oh, my God, I’m that awful.’”
Dead Man’s Chest and At World’s End were box office smashes that made Pirates of the Caribbean one of the most successful franchises of recent years and turned Knightley into one of Hollywood’s biggest young stars.
2014 has been a very successful year for Knightley as she has mixed and matched her roles with the likes of Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit, Begin Again, and Say When already under her belt. She returned to the big screen over the weekend with The Imitation Game.
