This is the cover for the January issue of Vogue UK. It sucks, right? You really have to work HARD to make Keira Knightley look this bad. She must have pissed someone off at the magazine. Anyway, Vogue UK has released some excerpts from the interview – Keira mostly talks about why we haven’t really seen that much of her over the past couple of years. She says that she seriously considered dropping out of the acting profession, just because she wasn’t enjoying it anymore, and she had done too many films back-to-back. Keira describes the “guilt” she felt doing various projects – which I guess is an allusion to other young actresses who would kill to get even half of the scripts Keira gets sent (coughBielcough):
The actress took a career break, travelling around Europe with friends and enjoying a lifestyle she had missed out on in her teens.
“I think I intended not to work again,” she said. “I wasn’t enjoying what I was doing and I felt terribly guilty about that. I remember hating the idea that I was in a privileged position and couldn’t see the point of any of it. I had worked solidly since I was 16, ’til 22, and I had not been on holiday in all of that time.”
She added: “I didn’t know if I was going to go back to acting at all. I think for a long time I thought I wouldn’t.”
Knightley eventually did go back to work and has since made four films, also appearing on stage in Martin Crimp’s version of Moliere’s The Misanthrope, a “challenge” she set herself and one that she loved. But she said that the excessive paparazzi attention had instilled a “fear” in her that remains today.
“I’m still not good at being recognised,” she said. “I wear scruffy clothes and hats and keep my head well down… I’m sure people must think I’m a complete b—-, but I’m just very shy.”
Knightley, 25, admitted that she only agreed to take part in her latest film, Never Let Me Go, an adaptation of the novel by Kazuo Ishiguro, because co-star Carey Mulligan had asked her to.
“She’s a very good friend of mine and (I felt) if I was to start making films again, she was someone who would watch my back,” she told the January issue of Vogue.
Mulligan agreed: “Keira is the friend I call when I’m in trouble or suffering from a broken heart. She’ll meet me in the bar with a mojito and be there for me. She reserves herself for the people she really cares about.”
[From The Telegraph]
I don’t think Keira is a bitch, but I do think she was very smart to take it down a notch. There was a time – circa 2006 – where she was EVERYWHERE, and she got annoying. By taking a step back and taking down her press machine for a short time, she gave everyone a breather and she let people miss her, which is always smart. Now if I could only figure out what she did to piss off Vogue UK editors.
Vogue UK cover courtesy of The Fashion Spot. Additional pic courtesy of WENN.
I don’t think the cover is as bad as the second picture…that one is unflattering. She sounds like a good friend, tho.
I think she looks pretty amazing on that cover. What’s your beef with it?
I like the vogue cover, and as the person said above that second pic is terrible. I really like Keira but I am getting tired of all these 22 year-olds whining ab out not getting a break and threatening to retire. I don’t believe that they don’t have any time off and guess what most of us don’t get much time off either and will be working well into our 60’s if not longer so I don’t want to hear it from these waifs.
Um… I’d just about be able to take looking like either of those pictures.
@TG you totally missed the point. She wasn’t “whining about not getting a break” – it was just the opposite; she WAS getting tons of offers for roles but she didn’t take them because she felt guilty about being unenthusiastic when others would kill for those opportunities. So she took a hiatus to do some soul-searching, noting wrong with that. Save your rant for a post it actually applies to, geez.
Anyway, Keira seems like she hasn’t let things get to her head, which is always good. With her looks she could have turned out to be insufferable and vain. I like that she’s made a point to stay as normal as she can.
I have always loved her. She can do no wrong as far as I’m concerned. I love her in Love Actually, it’s my favorite movie of all time. I even forgave her for that Pride and Prejudice mess. They chose the wrong Darcy, not her fault.
Hey Kaiser,
I agree with the others. She looks a bit circusy. Then again, red lipstick with bold black and white patterned clothes and loud accessories is, in my mind, actually the prototype for British Fashion. Yes, her hair is a bit weird and stringy looking because of whatever crappy styling they did, but her face is beautiful here. I mean, beautiful in the sense of model-beautiful and the photoshopping we’ve been trained to expect. Yes she could stand to gain weight, but I think its a standard cover.
I like the red lipstick. Maybe a trend as Natalie Portman wore a very dark red to the Black Swan premier.
Love the zap of color.
i like keira. she’s better than most actresses in her age bracket imo. She did get cast in Pirates which is a total careeer maker. Carey was good in An Education, but usually one performance is not enough to judge one acting ability. Kate Winslet (i know, different league) is the best though. English actress are really kicking ass, huh?
yeah, red lipstick is trying to make a comeback… all the stars r rocking it on the red carpet.
I loved her in Pirates and I also thought she did an awesome job in Domino. She really is very talented and it sounds like she had some well-deserved fun after making it big, so good for her. Glad to see her back.
I also really like that she went away for a while so people didnt get too sick of her. It was a smart move. If only shed start eating again though. The extreme thinness makes her seem older than she is. I dont like the cover either. Its not that she looks bad, its that the styling is bad. Its just too tacky and manufactured looking. The flower around her neck is too much
I like her when she doesn’t smile.
@TG: I totally understand where you’re coming from. Keira seems like a nice enough girl, and maybe it’s because I’m currently dealing with some financial hardship of my own, but the “woe is me” stuff coming from a beautiful, wealthy movie star several years my junior gets my eyes rolling fast.
@gabs:
The idea that all thin people must be starving themselves is an odd one.
And she’s no thinner now than she was when she was a completely unknown 16 year old.
I think she is a really beautiful woman, but that Jersey Shore blowout on the cover does not suit her looks!
I like the cover, and I like the fact that her thick eyebrows and the red lipstick don’t make her look gross or unclassy.
(and I like both dresses.
*runs away in shame*)
thats not true that she hasnt been on holiday in 6 years. I distinctly remember swim suit pics of her on holiday with her rupert or some-other-named boyfriend and getting in the mags for her marked skinny frame and the whole is she or isnt she anorexic. she annoys the heck out of me.
has she ever flashed the cooter?
@bros:
Those swimsuit pics were taken on Hawaii where she was shooting the final scenes of the third Pirates movie. So no – not a holiday.
On the one hand the whole “I worked for a solid 6 years with no holiday” thing got my eyes rolling. Yeah baby welcome to the real world … you think the rest of us get three months off a year?
On the other hand I think she meant it differently than it came off and she is sweet. She’s a terrible actress so I think it was smart of her to take a break and let people miss her. I hope she used that time to practice you know … acting … but whatever she’s not drunk and coked off her ass so that’s nice.
Wow how sad is it to like an actress just because they are not a coke whore … what a sad comment on Hollywood.
I completely agree with your last paragraph Kaiser, for a while there I could not stand this chick at all! I still think she is a god-awful actress (she made the POTC films barely watchable in her scenes). Now I find her slightly less annoying. *shrug*
@Shannon – I did not miss the point. I still stand by what I said. I like Keira, I am just saying I am tired of hearing young celebs threatening to retire because they don’t love what they do, etc. Yet, they always come back to it so I am calling bs on their statements. Most of us would love to have that opportunity and wouldn’t be complaining about it.
She went away? When?
The reading comprehension of some people here is seriously wanting.
She isn’t threatening to retire. She took a long break three years ago, but has long since started working again. That’s it.
I love that she seriously considered retiring. Shows that she is not in the business for attention. I don’t like the Vogue cover because it doesn’t really even look like her. They were lucky enough to get Keira for their cover, so they should at least have chosen a photo in which she is recognizable.
She always looks like she is sucking lemons and her acting has always the same facial expressions. They made her look like a Bratz doll on that cover.
Keira is a beautiful girl, but she looks like Helena Bonham Carter in that cover photo. HBC is also quite beautiful, but quite a bit older than Keira.
No need to feel guilty if you’ve got way more than you need. Give it away! Problem solved.
Unless you like wallowing in $$$$$$$ and then whining about it while the world goes to hell, because that IS pathological and ridiculous.
Maybe she felt weird about the roles she took that she was so horribly miscast in. Domino? Give me a break. A 20 year old 90 pound hit-woman beating up big bad guys? Or playing the love interest of Clive Owen, who is prob older than her dad? I hope she’d be at least a little embarrassed about some of those roles.
Hated HATED “love actually.” If she’s so worried about being privileged then I hope she’ll keep $100,000/ year and then give all the rest to the poor and needy. Start a bunch of scholarships. Sponsor a food bank. And shut the f*ck up.
For someone who is so strikingly beautiful, she really is a very talented actress…i thought she showed good chops in “The Duchess.”
She’ll be around forever…
I agree with those who say she never went. In Atonement BTW she wore the bathing suit that showed off her skeletal body, sitting on the diving board. She’s still anorexic, and full of herself. She never went away; no one was paying attention to her
Oh boy, another star feeling guilty about being privileged. It reminds me of a line in the Simpson’s Movie: “This country has made me a very rich man and I wanted to give something back. Not the money but something.” 🙂
She seems like a nice girl with a good head on her shoulders.
P.S. Check the spelling of privileged in the title!
I think that the person who wrote this is just jealous of what keira has everyone would love to be a star. people don’t blive of what you hear because they can be lying to you. like this person who has at his articale.