Keira Knightley is sharing rare insight into life as a wife and mother.
The Black Doves star, 39, has been married to British musician James Righton since 2013. The couple share two daughters, Edie, 9, and Delilah, 5.
“It’s good for an actress and a musician, isn’t it?” Knightley said of her 11-year union in an interview with The Times of London published Saturday, November 23. “We really annoy each other. But, f—, do we laugh.”
According to Knightley, her husband is an extrovert, and she struggles to come out of her shell at Hollywood and fashion industry parties.
“If James comes, they’re fun. James believes it is his right to have a good time and he will create it anywhere he goes,” said the actress. “Unless I’m really drunk, and you can’t be if you’re at one of those events, I find it quite intense and quite difficult. James manages to break formality with people, and I can’t do that.”
Since having children, Knightley said that she is more selective over the film and television roles she picks as she wants to be present for her two daughters.
“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,” the Pirates of the Caribbean star said. “I’ve chosen to have children, I want to bring them up, so I’ve had to take a major step back.”
Her children are one of the reasons she would never sign up for another major franchise like Disney’s Pirates series.
“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,” she said.
The Oscar nominee also shared that her daughters aren’t very interested in her acting work. Knightley noted that Edie recently saw Emma Watson in Greta Gerwig’s Little Women and was, per the Times, “unimpressed” to see the Harry Potter actor in a different role.
“She said actors shouldn’t play [multiple] other characters. Well, we wouldn’t live in this house, darling,” Knightley quipped.
In August, Knightley opened up about the special trait she shares with one of her two daughters.
While speaking about how she finds sight-reading to be “really hard” with dyslexia on the August 5 episode of the “Ruthie’s Table 4” podcast, Knightley noted that she and her husband “have a dyslexic kid.”
“It really bounces. But I listen to it. Basically, I record it and listen to it and listen to it and listen to it, and that’s how I learn it,” she said.
“She’s doing the same thing,” Knightley continued of her child. “It’s absolutely amazing.” Righton, 40, chimed in, adding, “She’ll look at books. She’ll memorize the book, basically. It’s amazing.”
On the podcast, Knightley credited her dyslexia diagnosis for helping her become an actress. “The school said, ‘Well, look, she can’t read at all, and we need a carrot to dangle in front of her. So, do you know if there’s something she wants?’” she stated. “And [my parents] said, ‘Well, she wants an agent.’”
Knightley continued: “It was always, ‘If you read, if your grades go up, you’re allowed to keep on acting. But If they go down, then it stops.’ It did go up, though. It was a carrot!”
