She’s best known for playing some of TV and film’s most romantic characters, from Elizabeth Bennet in Jane Austen’s Pride And Prejudice to Juliet in Love Actually.
But it appears Keira Knightley, who resides in London, is shifting away from her bread and butter roles as the charming love interest and instead opting to play more serious characters in darker thrillers and crime films.
Her latest role is a far cry from the days of tragic and emotional love stories from years past, such as Anna Karenina, The Edge Of Love and Atonement.Instead, she stars as travel journalistLaura ‘Lo’ Blacklock, in Netflix’s latest film, The Woman in Cabin 10, due for release in October.
Knightley’s character is a keen, career-driven woman, working on a luxury yacht when she witnesses a passenger thrown overboard, except she is told everyone onboard is accounted for and the tragic event did not happen.
Laura uses her journalistic determination to uncover the truth,even if it means ‘putting her own life in danger’, according to a synopsis.
And last December, she also starred in another Netflix thriller series, Black Doves, as a woman leading a double life as a mother and an assassin.At one point, Knightley, 40, was seen shooting a gun while her character was pregnant in a scene worlds apart from the roles she took as a teenage actress.
Brand Strategist Dylan Davey told the Royale that he believes the seasoned performer’s shift in genre is ‘strategic’ because she wants to be ‘taken more seriously’ as a dramatic actress, while appearing ‘edgier and more mature’ on screen.
He said: ‘I’d say Keira Knightley’s pivot into darker thrillers is likely a very strategic move. She could have easily continued with romantic dramas – it’s a space she dominated and is widely known for – but this new shift suggests a clear desire to be taken more seriously as a dramatic actress.
Keira Knightley stars as travel journalist Laura ‘Lo’ Blacklock, in Netflix’s latest film, The Woman in Cabin 10 (pictured)
‘These roles allow her to explore more layered, psychologically complex characters, which challenge her creatively and broaden how the industry sees her.’
Davey, who is the founder of marketing agency The Social Inc, added that he believes it is a ‘smart move’ that will ‘help her be taken more seriously by the industry’.
He said: ‘She’srepositioning herself with an edgier, more mature screen persona that aligns with where she is in life and opens the doors to not just new types of roles but also helps her appeal to high fashion brands, so from a commercial standpoint, it could be a calculated evolution of her brand.’
This has led to Knightley building up an impressive and highly varied CV, which has seen her scoop Academy Awards, two British Academy Film Awards, four Golden Globe Awards, two Screen Actors Guild Awards and one Laurence Olivier Award.
In Black Doves, Knightley, who plays Helen Webb,the wife of the Secretary of State for Defence, who learns that her secret identity as a Black Dove is in danger after her lover is killed by London’s underworld.
Although it was wildly different to Bend It Like Beckham, the film that shot her to success, Black Doveswas an instant hit, flying to the top of the charts as viewers dubbed it a ‘Christmas series’ – even gaining a royal seal of approval.
Whilst handing out Christmas presents to children and families at a party for 1st Battalion Mercian Regiment in Wiltshire, Prince William revealed he andPrincess Catherine had sat down to watch Black Doves.
Knightley said she went for the role ofHelen because she was looking for a role that ‘involved curious creatures doing strange things’.
Her latest roles are a far cry from the romantic comedies she’s known for. Above: Pictured in Love Actually
At one point in Black Doves, Knightley is seen shooting a gun while her character was pregnant in a scene worlds apart from the roles she took as a teenage actress
Keira Knightley and Matthew Macfadyen are seen sharing an intimate moment in Pride and Prejudice
Keira Knightley is pictured on a boat in her upcoming Netflix film,The Woman in Cabin 10
Keira Knightley is seen alongsideDaniel Ings who plays Adamin The Woman in Cabin 10
She toldTown & Country: ‘Helen’s definitely a curious creature and she’s definitely doing strange things. She’s a mercenary and a character with lots of contradictions. I enjoyed all of them.’
She had to undergo a month of fight training injujitsu and boxing before she took on the role and ended up impressing even herself.
‘I was quite good at all of it,’ she said. ‘I slightly surprised myself.’
But it seems you won’t be catching Knightley starring in a franchise again.
Last year, it was reportedthat she had ruled them out after starring in the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, revealing that the ‘insane’ schedule takes ‘years off your life.’
She famously starred as Elizabeth Swann in the first three Pirates of the Caribbean films from 2003 to 2007 alongside Johnny Depp and Orlando Bloom.
She told The Times:’The hours are insane. It’s years of your life, you have no control over where you’re filming, how long you’re filming, what you’re filming.’
In 2023, Knightley even opened upabout how she sought to broaden her career after her breakout role portraying Elizabeth Swann.
She toldHarper’s Bazaar UK:'[Elizabeth] was the object of everybody’s lust.
‘Not that she doesn’t have a lot of fight in her. But it was interesting coming from being really tomboyish to getting projected as quite the opposite. I felt very constrained. I felt very stuck.
‘So the roles afterwards were about trying to break out of that.
Knightley also admitted that she doesn’t really watch back any of the films she stars in. Pictured: The famous cue card scene in Love Actually
Knightley pictured in the The Imitation Game, where she played the part of cryptanalyst Joan Clarke, who ends up cracking the Enigma code
‘I didn’t have a sense of how to articulate it. It very much felt like I was caged in a thing I didn’t understand.’
Knightley also admitted that she doesn’t really watch back any of the films she stars in.
She said in an interviewwith the Los Angeles Times: ‘Most of my films I have either never seen or I have only seen once,’ while also admitting that she doesn’t remember much about filming Love Actually in 2003, as she was only on the set for five days.
Speaking about the film further,she said of the famous doorstep cue card scene: ‘The slightly stalkerish aspect of it – I do remember that. My memory is of [director] Richard [Curtis], who is now a very dear friend, of me doing the scene, and him going, ‘No, you’re looking at [Lincoln] like he’s creepy,’ and I’m like [in a dramatic whisper], ‘But it is quite creepy.’ And then having to redo it to fix my face to make him seem not creepy.
‘I mean, there was a creep factor at the time, right? Also, I knew I was 17. It only seems like a few years ago that everybody else realised I was 17.’
A decade after the cult classic Christmas film was released, Knightley starred in romantic comedy Begin Again, alongside Adam Levine and Mark Ruffalo.
However, just one year later in 2014, Knightley bagged one of her first roles in thriller The Imitation Game, where she played the part ofcryptanalyst Joan Clarke, who ends upcracking the Enigma code.
A couple of years prior, in 2011, she even tried her hand at a historical drama with under tones of horror, A Dangerous Method. She plays Sabina Spielrein, a patient suffering fromhysteria who ends up falling in love with her doctor,Dr. Carl Jung.
