Whatever Happened To Kiera Knightley After Pirates Of The Caribbean? The List
Kiera Knightley was front and center in the "Pirates Of The Caribbean" movies, but she has traded the franchise movie world for a quieter life.
By Feb. 13, 2025 2:15 pm EST
If you were watching movies in the 2000s, there was no way to miss Keira Knightley. Knightley's desire for fame began at a shockingly young age, and after years in small parts, she came out of the gate swinging in 2002, leading the cast of the beloved indie movie "Bend It Like Beckham." The following year, she starred in both "Love Actually" and "Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl," instantly rocketing her to the A-List. She would ultimately star in three "Pirates" franchise films, which lasted until 2007; by the time she finished the final film in the trilogy, she was Academy Award Nominee Keira Knightley, thank you very much. Her 2006 role in "Pride & Prejudice" had brought her ... well, if not full-blown critical respectability, then the respect of anyone going through a breakup who needed a good cry.
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Massive success like that can be difficult to sustain, however, as Knightley later told The Times. Furthermore, the 2000s were a notoriously difficult time to be a famous person; after all, the paparazzi were everywhere, and the wrong photo could prove damaging. "I 100% recognized and saw people's careers being shattered because they were photographed coming out of clubs," she recalled. "The money on my head at that point, if you'd got a picture of me drunk, was so huge." After "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End," Knightley was left to her own devices. Read on to learn whatever happened to one of the biggest stars of the 2000s.
Keira Knightley made fashion history with her role in AtonementThe same year Keira Knightley wrapped up her role in the "Pirates of the Caribbean" franchise, she also starred in a film that guaranteed her a permanent place in fashion history. The 2007 film "Atonement" featured Knightley as Cecilia Tallis, a young woman whose younger sister (Saoirse Ronan) accuses her boyfriend, Robbie (James McAvoy,) of a crime he did not commit. The period piece features one of the most traumatic movie deaths that still sticks with us today, but there's also a scene where Knightley wears a sumptuous, backless green dress that has become downright iconic.
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Costume designer Jacqueline Durran spoke with Entertainment Weekly about the dress, recalling the instruction she was given while creating the garment. "The mood of the dress should be that it could remind the audience that it is the hottest day of the year," she said. "So, what I tried to do in creating this dress was to make it out of very fine fabric, and make it very light and unstructured."
The fabric turned out to be incredibly fragile. Knightley told BBC Radio 1 that she didn't get to keep the dress because it didn't last. "IÂ broke them all,"Â she said mournfully. "I definitely broke most of them ...a sex scene, in a dress like that!" The fabric, she said, was laser-cut. "The tops were constantly being re-sewn, and re-done, and re-done."Â Though the dress itself didn't last, its impact sure did.
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She became the face of Chanel's Coco Mademoiselle in 2007In 2007, Keira Knightley became the face of Chanel's Coco Mademoiselle fragrance. She's since starred in several ad campaigns for the luxury fashion brand, including multiple commercials that feature her wandering around Paris looking glamorous and mysterious.
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In an interview with British Vogue, the "Never Let Me Go"Â star insisted that she actually wears the perfume. Furthermore, she said, it was a radical departure from her usual scents. "It's the first women's perfume that I've ever worn, cause I always wore men's perfume,"Â she said. Before she linked up with Chanel, Knightley preferred scents that projected strength. "IÂ don't like light and flowery,"Â she said. "I'm not that kind of girl. I need something that's gonna make me feel like, you know, I'm standing up straight."
Thanks in part to her association with the brand, Knightley's devotion to Chanel runs deep. After the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic, she revealed to Harper's Bazaar that one of the ways she lifted her family's morale was by wearing as much Chanel as she could. "We have a trampoline in our garden, and we decided we were only allowed to wear dresses on it," she said. "I put on red lipstick every day, and every bit of Chanel that I have in my cupboard."
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She made her West End debut in 2009Though Keira Knightley is primarily known as a film star, she does theater, too. Furthermore, it seems that she's quite good at it! In 2009, two years removed from the "Pirates of the Caribbean" franchise that made her such a screen star, Knightley dialed it back by acting in a play on London's West End. She chose an updated version of MoliÚre's "The Misanthrope," set in modern times; she starred as a calculating actor used to manipulating the people around her. "I loved its hard edges," she told the BBC. "It looks at a world that I know and that I'm part of, and it makes fun of it. I thought it was quite naughty, and I liked that."
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She shared the stage with "Homeland" star Damian Lewis, who told Broadway.com that any criticism of Knightley â primarily, that she was a movie star who didn't belong in the theater â didn't fly with him. After all, their staging of the play was about a film actor. "This is why Keira's instincts are so keen on stage and why I think she's really enjoying it â and is very good," he said. "I've said this before, but I really think if the media want to take potshots at her, I genuinely believe it will be out of mean-spiritedness." Knightley's performance was ultimately well-received, earning her an Olivier Award nomination. Take that, critics!
She continued to star in period pieces like Anna KareninaAfter receiving an Oscar nomination for "Pride &Â Prejudice" and leading the cast of "Atonement,"Â Keira Knightley continued starring in multiple period pieces over the next phase of her career. In 2012, she played the titular role in director Joe Wright's adaptation of "Anna Karenina,"Â a Russian novel about a woman who has an affair. Wright had directed those previous period pieces, too, and Knightley told Glamour that this was all intentional. "We really like this because it was our version of a trilogy," she said. "I think we both like working from literal adaptations. Books have such great source material."
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"Anna Karenina," though, was a new experience for both star and director. "I think we both realized that we've changed a lot," she said. "I can't put my finger on exactly what, but we saw the world differently, and we worked slightly differently. We were interested in different things." As with Knightley's previous Wright collaborations, this one was a critical hit; it took home the Oscar for achievement in costume design. Fittingly, Knightley told Glamour that the costumes were part of the fun. "I've always loved costumes since I was a kid. Costume design always fascinated me because it's creating a character," she reminisced. "Whereas, I never know who I want to be." She would go on to star in several additional period pieces with other directors, including "Colette," "The Aftermath," and "Boston Strangler."
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She married musician James Righton in 2013In 2013, Keira Knightley married boyfriend James Righton, a musician who occasionally works as a film composer. They met via fashion correspondent Alexa Chung and were together about a year before getting engaged. In an interview with Marie Claire (via People), Knightley said they weren't planning anything particularly big for their nuptials. "I could have six fake weddings. God, that would be expensive," she said. "I don't need to have all that." Sure enough, when they finally did walk down the aisle, the ceremony was a rather small one. A source told People, "It was not a long service, and very few people ... [It] lasted only about 30 minutes. Keira looked beautiful. She wore a very pretty, very elegant dress."
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That dress, it turned out, was a Chanel dress that Knightley already owned. "I'd worn the dress lots. It was my 'something old.' And I liked not making a big deal about it," she told E! News. Unfortunately, the dress didn't survive the wedding. "It's now got red wine spilled down the front... But, hey, a good night is a good night and when a dress has had its time, maybe it's had its time," she said. "I'm happy with the memory of a good night and the story of how the dress got destroyed."
Keira Knightley got a second Oscar nomination for The Imitation GameJoe Wright wasn't the only director who could get Keira Knightley to an Oscar nomination for a period piece. Morten Tyldum did it, too, when he directed her in "The Imitation Game."Â The movie was about the British code-breakers at Bletchley Park during World War II, who managed to crack the Nazis' Enigma machine. Knightley played Joan Clarke, the lone woman on the team; she was a code-cracking genius, a woman who worked her way onto the elite team by solving a difficult puzzle that had been placed in a crossword.
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When the Los Angeles Times asked Knightley if this movie meant we were in a golden era of women on screen, she pushed back and insisted that Hollywood should be doing more. "Female stories and female voices are very often missed out on, completely. Very often in every section of culture women are lost; every actress will say the exact same thing to you," she said. "We're all looking for these interesting, inspiring, complex creatures... but they're very difficult to find."
Knightley also used her best supporting actress Oscar nomination to draw attention to the movie's main character, Alan Turing. He was the man who ultimately cracked the Enigma code, but because he was gay, he was chemically castrated by the government. Knightley told Deadline, "I would like to think the many recognitions the Academy has given our movie is a celebration of Alan Turing's legacy."
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One of Keira Knightley's directors publicly criticized her workWhile directors Joe Wright and Morten Tyldum were undoubtedly proud of Keira Knightley for the performances she gave in their films, one director in particular was quite cruel to his star publicly. In 2013, she starred in a film called "Begin Again"Â from John Carney, the director behind "Once." Apparently, he wasn't too impressed with what she did in the film. Looking back at "Begin Again"Â in an interview with The Independent, he scoffed, "...Keira has an entourage that follow her everywhere so it's very hard to get any real work done. ...I like to work with curious, proper film actors as opposed to movie stars." Insisting that he didn't want to insult her, he added, "...I'll never make a film with supermodels again." Ouch!
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Thankfully, the media leapt to Knightley's defense â a departure from her early career, when they were the ones questioning whether she was ready for the West End. Carney apologized in a statement to Variety, writing that he had already said sorry to her privately but that he wanted to make sure everyone knew how much he regretted his comments. "I said a number of things about Keira which were petty, mean and hurtful. I'm ashamed of myself that I could say such things," he said. "Keira was nothing but professional and dedicated during that film and she contributed hugely to its success."
Keira Knightley slowed her career to raise two daughtersIf you have the sense that you don't see as much of Keira Knightley these days as you did in the 2000s, there's a reason for that. Since becoming a mother, she intentionally dialed back her career in order to focus on raising her two daughters. Before she went public with that fact, however, Knightley didn't tell the press about the genders of her children. In 2015, she told the Los Angeles Times that her message to her children would be the same either way, whether they were boys or girls. "I think it's very important to raise boys who are feminists and very important to raise girls who don't expect Prince Charming, and allow men to be emotional and weak at points and strong at points," she said.
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In 2024, looking back at the past decade of her career, she told The Times that she was only taking jobs that would make it easy to see her kids. "I couldn't go job to job [abroad] now. It wouldn't be in any way fair on them, and I wouldn't want to. I've chosen to have children," she reasoned. "I want to bring them up, so I've had to take a major step back." Her private life, after all, has always been important to the actor, and what we know about Keira Knightley and James Righton's two kids is thus very limited.
She received an Order of the British EmpireIn 2018, after many years in the limelight, Keira Knightley was officially recognized by the royal family. That year, she received an Order of the British Empire, an honor given to citizens who have served their country in ways that don't involve the military. Knightley's OBE came for her "services to drama and charity,"Â and she accepted it directly from King Charles III in a ceremony held at Buckingham Palace.
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The palace itself announced the honor on Instagram, posting a photo of the monarch with the "Seeking A Friend For The End Of The World" star. In the caption, they wrote, "Keira's acting career has spanned almost two decades, and she has worked with and supported charities including Water Aid and Oxfam." At the ceremony, she wore a suit and hat by (who else?) Chanel.
Knightley's OBE came only a few months after she was rumored to have angered Catherine, Princess of Wales. The actor had written an essay about the princess's appearance outside the hospital where she'd just given birth, insisting that it gave women an improper idea of what it was like to recover from such a medical event. "Keira is obviously entitled to her own opinion, but it was very much based on her own experiences and not of Kate's," a source told Us Weekly. "Not every mother feels the same way."
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Keira Knightley starring role on a 2024 Netflix series garnered her a Golden Globe nominationBy 2024, you'd think Keira Knightley had done it all. That year, however, she added something new to her resumé: television star. Though she'd appeared on TV early in her career, and though she'd done voice acting on a few shows, Knightley had never actually led the cast of a television series until 2024. That year, she starred in "Black Doves," a spy thriller on Netflix that features the "Official Secrets" star as a badass, butt-kicking spy drawn into a web of intrigue.
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On "Black Doves,"Â Knightley wasn't just the star; she was also a producer, helping shape the show from the pilot onward. "I had to sign on for two seasons, so we needed to create somebody who I had enough question marks about to keep it juicy for that long," she told Deadline. "And I was super excited when I got this script from Joe [Barton], because, well, she's weird."
Knightley's performance brought her something she hadn't had in an entire decade: a Golden Globe nomination. (Her last was for "The Imitation Game," and it led to an Oscar nod, too). In an interview on "Today," Knightley told beloved "TODAY" host Hoda Kotb that she'd called her mum first upon hearing the news. "She was like, 'Ooh that's exciting! What're you going to wear? Who's going to look after the children?" Her mother watched the kids, and Knightley, of course, wore Chanel.
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She has no interest in returning to franchise filmmakingIn 2024, Keira Knightley was given an opportunity to reflect on her time in the "Pirates of the Caribbean" franchise. She'd starred in three of those films and was rumored to have had a relationship with Johnny Depp, an actor who has since been embroiled in a very public scandal. Telling The Times that her experiences with the star were only positive, aside from his tardiness to set, she reflected that the "Pirates" films occupied a strange space in her memory. "It's a funny thing when you have something that was making and breaking you at the same time. I was seen as s*** because of them," she reminisced, "and yet because they did so well I was given the opportunity to do the films that I ended up getting Oscar nominations for."
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Acknowledging that she'll likely never be cast in anything that successful ever again, Knightley insisted that she wouldn't want it any other way. If there are more "Pirates" films being made, she said, she had no interest in playing Elizabeth Swann again. In fact, she added that she wouldn't sign on to any franchise, period. "The hours are insane," she said. "It's years of your life, you have no control over where you're filming, how long you're filming, what you're filming."Â If there's one thing Keira Knightley likes in her life now, all these decades into her stardom, it's control. Finally, she's the one steering the ship.
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