As the cover girl of the October issue of Vogue magazine, Keira Knightley has given an in-depth interview promoting her new movie ‘Anna Karenina’, which just premiered at the Venice International Film Festival. In the interview, Knightley talks about taking a break from work, and how she doesn’t need to play the heroine.
In terms of taking a break from acting, Knightley says, “Looking back on her decision to take nine months off, Keira searches for the right words. “I literally had no life outside of acting, and I just wanted to go off and not be ‘on’ all the time, not be photographed, not. . . . ” She pauses, then remembers, laughing. “I once went to the Glastonbury music festival”—practically a rite of passage for every English teenager—“and was completely surrounded by packs of paparazzi the entire time, so I ended up sitting in a trailer, unable to go out.”
She also adds that she doesn’t have the need to play the traditional heroine, saying, “I think a lot of people want to play heroic characters, and that’s it. But I don’t find that very compelling. It’s far more interesting to think about characters whose actions don’t always make sense. The fact is, the opposite is always alive in every decision. And if you look at your own life, and the way you’ve behaved and thought, it won’t always make sense either.”
