A rapid rise to fame led to suffocating public interest in Keira Knightley and, tiring of paparazzi intrusion, the award-winning actress walked away from Hollywood in her early twenties
Award-winning actress Keira Knightley has revealed how she fled Hollywood and travelled Europe after a hidden struggle.
After picking up an agent when she was just six years old, Keira enjoyed a massive rise to fame which saw her become one of the most sought-after stars in the world by her mid-teens. It was a period that, she says, sent her “mad” as her family home was staked out by paparazzi desperate to get photos of her.
After appearing in George Lucas’s long-awaited first Star Wars prequel, Keira starred in hit comedy drama Bend It Like Beckham when she was 17. Over the following year she went on to play significant roles in Love, Actually and the globally-successful Pirates of the Caribbean franchise.
The huge public demand for photos of her meant that Keira’s every move was stalked by photographers, making her life a complete mystery. “I went mad. I just managed to hide it,” she told The Times.
Her fight-back against the ever-present paparazzi involved buying an entire wardrobe of identical clothes, so that all of the photos of her looked the same.
But even that wasn’t enough to completely stifle fans’ demand for more and more photos of her and so, still in her early twenties, Keira walked away from stardom.
She recalled the moment she decided to quit Hollywood: “One day, I was like, ‘I’m out.’ And my family backed me. They said, ‘Just f***ing walk.’ ”
Keira called her agent and told them not to accept any more scripts before taking an extended trip around Europe, using her acting gifts to disappear completely.
“I was very good,” she says. “Museums, trains… no one expects to see you there. I was very scruffy, which they also wouldn’t have expected. You just don’t make eye contact, go a bit hunched. I kind of slithered.”
When Keira returned to acting, she returned on her own terms.
Using the star power that comes with an Academy Award nomination she ignored lucrative blockbuster roles and instead opted for smaller, more art-house films and stage rôles.
She’s also recently appeared in a couple of big-budget dramas with Netflix – The Woman in Cabin 10, where she plays a journalist who is the only eyewitness to a passenger being thrown overboard from a yacht, and 2024’s all-star spy thriller Black Doves.
