Keira Knightley discusses ‘major step back’ after having children

Actor said she surprises herself over what projects she ‘says no’ to

Keira Knightly has discussed the new parameters she has set for her work commitments after having children.

Over the years, the 39-year-old British actor has appeared in many blockbuster films, including Pirates of the Caribbean, Love Actually and Atonement, which have allowed her to work and travel around the world.

However, Knightley has said she no longer takes jobs abroad due to her commitment to her children, Edie, nine and Delilah, five, who she shares with her husband, the musician James Righton.

Knightley’s latest project is the Netflix thriller Black Doves, starring Ben Whishaw and Sarah Lancashire, which worked out because it was filmed in London. She previously backed out of the 2022 TV drama The Essex Serpent when it clashed with her childcare commitments, with Claire Danes taking over her role.

“I couldn’t go job to job [abroad] now,” she told The Sunday Times. “It wouldn’t be in any way fair on them, and I wouldn’t want to.”

“I’ve chosen to have children, I want to bring them up, so I’ve had to take a major step back.”

Knightley added that she has become increasingly pickier about her work, and surprises herself about about what she’s “said no to”.

“I’ve wanted it to be more pure entertainment and maybe that’s because I’ve needed that. I keep being offered things about children dying or about mothers dying. Can’t do it,” she said.

Keira Knightley and her husband James Righton, 2022 (Getty Images For Chanel)

Knightly met her husband through a mutual friend on a night out in Soho in 2011, when he was the keyboardist in the band the Klaxons.

She took on smaller projects as she fell in love, avoided the limelight and lived her life to the fullest.

“It was a really good time,” she told the publication. It couldn’t have continued much beyond then, partly because I got pregnant but also, healthwise, I don’t think it would have been good. But I think periods of hedonism are very important.”

Knightley, who dropped out of sixth form to pursue acting, said that she wouldn’t let her daughters follow in her footsteps of not going to University.

The actor spoke about regretting not studying at the Open University when she had the opportunity when she was in her twenties.

Knightley has two daughters, Edie, nine and Delilah, five (Getty Images)

She said: “Particularly for a young girl, I think you need those pieces of paper saying that you’re smart, otherwise people think you’re stupid, particularly looking the way I did,” she said. “That was hard.”

Speaking to People in 2022, Knightly admitted that her older daughter Edie isn’t interested in watching her films.

“I did a version of The Nutcracker a couple of years ago, and she actually came on set with me to that one when she was three, so I thought, ‘Oh, this year maybe she wants to watch that?’” the actor recalled.

“[But] she said ‘No.’”

“So she is completely uninterested in seeing me in any way at all on television, which is completely fair enough. I think that’s very healthy. I don’t know that she ever will [be] and that’s fine.”