Keira Knightley Rules Out Franchises After Experience With ‘Pirates Of The Caribbean’: “I Was Taken Down Publicly”

deadline.com:

Having been in the limelight since she was 17 with the Pirates of the Caribbean films, two-time Oscar nominee Keira Knightley said she has since ruled out returning to the franchise world. “It’s a funny thing when you have something that was making and breaking you at the same time,” Knightley — whose fame was cemented at the height of the noughties with the initial trilogy and other fare like Atonement and Pride & Prejudice later on — told The Times of London in a new profile. “I was seen as sh– because of them, and yet because they did so well I was given the opportunity to do the films that I ended up getting Oscar nominations for [Pride & Prejudice and The Imitation Game],” the Bend It Like Beckham star said. “They were the most successful films I’ll ever be a part of and they were the reason that I was taken down publicly.

So they’re a very confused place in my head.” Knightley appeared in the first three Pirates of the Caribbean films, beginning in 2003.

She portrayed Elizabeth Swann in the original Curse of the Black Pearl, Dead Man’s Chest (2006) and At World’s End (2007), opposite Orlando Bloom and Johnny Depp.

As a result, Knightley said, she would not return to the demanding schedule and requirements of a sequel-spawning tentpole. “The hours are insane.