Keira Knightley Slammed By Begin Again Director

‘Begin Again’ director John Carney has criticised his leading female Keira Knightley for her unprofessional conduct.

Ironic, considering the director is now publicly slamming his former star, who claims working with Knightley on the 2014 was difficult. He questioned the authenticity of her leading performance and branded her and her entourage as disruptive.

Speaking to The Independent, Carney, who also directed ‘Once’, described the process as positive when it came to working alongside male actors Mark Ruffalo and Maroon 5′s Adam Levine. He described Ruffalo as a “fantastic actor” and Levine as a “joy to work with,” but was less flattering when it came to Knightley after saying the ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ star was afraid and hid away from the role:

“I think that’s what you need as an actor; you need to not be afraid to find out who you really are when the camera’s rolling,” he shared. “Keira’s thing is to hide who you are and I don’t think you can be an actor and do that.”

He went on to berate the British actress who has starred in ‘Love Actually’, ‘Atonement’, ‘Domino’, ‘The Duchess’, ‘Never Let Me Go’, and ‘The Imitation Game’:

“[…] It’s not like I hate the Hollywood thing but I like to work with curious, proper film actors as opposed to movie stars. I don’t want to rubbish Keira, but you know it’s hard being a film actor and it requires a certain level of honesty and self-analysis that I don’t think she’s ready for yet and I certainly don’t think she was ready for that on film.”

Carney criticised the actress’s ability to portray the role, too, because she was not accustomed to being the character’s singer-songwriter persona in the real world. Yet didn’t have an issue about Ruffalo not being a real-life music producer, which seems unfair. “As much as I tried to make it work I think that she didn’t quite come out as a guitar-playing singer-songwriter,” he said.

And to add insult to injury, the scathing comments rounded off with an insulting and inaccurate description of Knightley: “I learned that I’ll never make a film with supermodels again”. Only, she’s an actress and not a supermodel. Awkward.

Clearly the pair didn’t see eye-to-eye during their time working together, but it’s surprising to hear such venomous comment emerge so long afterwards. He does, however, have a new film out at the moment called ‘Sing Street’, so perhaps it’s not such a coincidence after all.

Carney’s new film, ‘Sing Street’, is in UK cinemas now.

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Picture credit: Apatow Productions