Can she act? Is she too thin? Does she have an eating disorder? They're the kind of questions that Keira Knightley, the star of the new Pirates of the Caribbean film, has got used to dealing with - in her own withering way, writes Donald Clarke
Keira Knightley comes out swinging. If she had a cutlass there would, within minutes of her entering the room, be little pulpy wads of Maltese scribbler and Portuguese hack splattered about the ornate hotel room. She is in London to promote the third film in the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, and, like those buccaneers of old, she appears reluctant to take any prisoners. The first to venture an inquiry is a severe Teutonic gentleman to her right. What's this about her going on a skiing holiday? Knightley narrows her eyes and presses her lips tightly together. "Now how did that come out?" she nearly hisses. Helmut makes ineffectual blathering noises. "Well, that is wildly inappropriate," she continues. "That was meant to be a private holiday. So, no comment."
Attempting to lighten the mood, the man from The Irish Times asks if she still keeps a house in London. "Yes. I live here," she says firmly, allowing the accusation of grandiosity in the phrase "keep a house" to fester stinkily in the air between us.
Knightley delivers her premature retaliation with a sly smile that invites good sports to conclude that we are all just playing a party game. But it is, nonetheless, apparent that, at the age of 22, she has already had to develop strategies for dealing with hostile questioning. For some reason or other, a great many people have it in for Knightley. Spend a few minutes investigating the actress on the internet and you quickly find yourself waist deep in swelling tides of jealousy, invective and lunatic speculation.
Many young women in particular seem personally affronted by her appearance. She is, the anonymous posters remark, far too thin. Her jaw is too solid. Her skin is patchy. She dresses like . . . Well, you get the drift.
"I don't know if you develop a thick skin, exactly," she says. "I think all that does hurt, particularly if it is said in a completely inappropriate way by people who should know better. It is a bit like being back in the playground, and I left that rather a long time ago, but it is quite extraordinary that there is an industry devoted to getting you back there. It does hurt."
I am happy to report that, seen up close, she is quite striking. Dressed in an impressive white thing, the indescribability of which betrays its undoubted priciness, she radiates the haughty charisma you would expect of a head girl at a decent grammar school. It is true that one can detect a few traces of acne on her forehead. Then again, who, at 22, did not have the odd bad-skin day? It is undeniable that she looks as if she could do with a good feed. What's new? I have, sadly, met few female movie stars who look otherwise.
So why all the ill feeling in cyberspace? Kate Winslet, though frequently ragged about the oscillations in her weight, is, when compared with her younger, slighter compatriot, positively adored by the British public. Class still has something to do with it. Knightley, raised in that bit of suburban London that can call itself Surrey, does not come from a particularly posh background - her father, Will Knightley, is an actor; her mother, Sharman Macdonald, is a fine playwright - but her voice and bearing give off a withering patrician confidence.
Many folk are also, perhaps, somewhat bitter about the apparent ease of her ascent. Having demanded an agent when still a child, the young Keira took the inevitable supporting parts on The Bill before, then still just 14, landing the role of Queen Amidala's handmaiden in Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace. Three years later she made a serious impact as the Asian hero's confident mate in Bend It Like Beckham. Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl - and grade-A fame - followed in 2003.
"It is rare that any film is a huge success," she sighs. "Nobody really thought the picture would be as successful as it is. It was a pirate movie based on a theme-park ride. But I got laughed at for doing Pride & Prejudice, too. People said it is disgusting that a girl who can't even act was being given that sort of role. Again, nobody thought that would be successful. Success is always unexpected."
Whatever about the success of the first Pirates film, the scale of the sequel's triumph is, some hyperbole admitted, one of the great mysteries of the modern era. Soundly pummelled by critics on its release, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, in which Knightley's Elizabeth Swann again flitted between roguish Johnny Depp and callow Orlando Bloom, went on to become the third most successful movie of all time. Yet, for all that, they started work on the new film, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, without a proper script. Knightley apparently didn't even know whether one character, played by Chow Yun-Fat, the great Hong Kong actor, was supposed to be a goody or a baddy.
"That was rather difficult," she admits. "Nobody knew what the storyline was. I did one scene with Chow Yun-Fat and I assumed it was at the beginning of the story. I assumed I was being kidnapped and it was all totally awful for me. Everybody was coming up to me and saying: 'Why are you playing it like this?' And it was actually the end of the movie, and I had chosen to go with him, and I wasn't supposed to be terrified at all. That is the problem of starting a film without a script."
Script or no script, the latest epic is sure to rake in a great many doubloons when it is released, next week. That will, however, still leave one problem unsolved for Knightley. Having had great financial triumph with the Pirates films, and having picked up an Oscar nomination for Joe Wright's nicely grubby Pride & Prejudice, she is still awaiting a successful starring role in a contemporary film.
Like Helena Bonham Carter before her, she seems in danger of being typecast as the well- spoken young lady in the bustles. Two years ago Tony Scott's Domino, in which she starred as a female bounty hunter, flopped badly. Has she been developing strategies to break away from the period material? "No. I am very selfish," she says. "I make films because I want to and don't think about how much people will like them. None of us thought that Domino would do anything, partly because nobody is willing to take a woman in that part."
So her agent has made no conscious effort to push her in contemporary roles? Knightley gestures towards a woman who has been sitting quietly in the corner of the room. "Yeah, she's over there," she says, laughing. "And she is always forcing me to do things I don't want to do. No. We have no strategy like that."
By this point Knightley has relaxed somewhat. Although there has been the occasional moronic question, nobody among the small group of journalists has ventured into any properly sensitive areas. There have, for example, been no inquiries about her former relationship with the Northern Irish model and actor Jamie Dornan. Everybody has stayed away from asking about her current squeeze, Rupert Friend.
But somebody always has to go and ruin it all for those who are behaving themselves. Adopting a brave vista, a European lady mentions that "there have been accusations" that Knightley has an eating disorder. We all begin doodling nervously in our notepads as a terrible hush falls over the room.
"You use a fascinating word there," Knightley eventually says with a flinty stare. "You say: 'You have been accused of having an eating disorder.' Doesn't that say a lot? I think that in your business, from what I can see, you have deadlines and there always has to be a drama every single week. Nobody can keep up with the dramas you have to talk about."
I have drawn a very ornate pattern on my notepad. It is bordered by lovely curlicues and extravagant Biro flourishes.
"No, I do not have an eating disorder. I have never had an eating disorder. It is a lie. It is slanderous. I have publicly denied it on several occasions. How does it feel that I am said to have a mental illness?" She redoubles the intensity of her stare at the offending journalist. "You have a mental illness. How does that feel?"
Critics sometimes suggest that Knightley is not the world's greatest actress. Having read a few interviews with her recently, I know that this is far from the first time she has delivered this precise response to the anorexia question. Yet she reads her lines as if they have just come into her head and leaves everyone in the room feeling as if they have been well and truly told off. That's what I call a performance.
None of which is to suggest she is not annoyed by the constant intrusion into her private affairs. While her old friends were allowed to booze their way through university unmolested and cavort unnoticed with inappropriate men, Knightley has had to endure a running commentary on her journey into adulthood. From time to time she must wonder what life might have been like if she had elected to live an ordinary one.
"I have no idea what that would have been like," she says. "The grass is always greener on the other side, so I would have loved to have gone to university. But maybe I would have hated it there. I don't think life would have been any easier. I have mates coming out with debts of 30 grand, and they can't get a job. So I don't regret taking the path I have taken."
Knightley, no fool, is right not to adopt the poor mouth when discussing her fame. She can demand a higher fee than any other female British actor and is not shy about allowing her image to get about the place. Last year, for example, she and Scarlett Johansson appeared nude on the cover of Vanity Fair beside a notably clothed Tom Ford. The fact that the fashion designer got to keep his kit on while the women shivered lent Annie Leibovitz's photograph a distinctly queasy tone. It just didn't look right. "I love it. It's something a bit different," she says.
But Vanity Fair would never put a nude man on the cover. Would they? "I think they have. No? There are obvious differences between men and women. This morning I was asked if my main goal in life was to get married and have a family. I don't imagine any man would be asked that." I am not sure what this has to do with the Vanity Fair photograph, but it remains an interesting observation.
"But if you ask how I feel about being asked to go on the front cover of one of the world's most popular magazines in a photo taken by a top fashion photographer, then I would say it's great. I turned up without my legs shaved and so on, and Annie, who I hadn't worked with before, said we were going to go nude. So, I thought, great. I may not want to do this in five years' time."
Knightley, a woman of no little drive, is getting ready to appear in The Best Time of Our Lives, a film about Dylan Thomas's early life written by her mother. Presumably, the set will be stalked by those organs - Heat, Bliss, Closer, Filth, Pap - whose covers are devoted to scrutinising how thin or how fat stars look when buying milk. Knightley tells me she does not let that level of attention change her daily habits. "I could hire staff to do those things, but I have a Celtic streak, and I don't want to spend the money," she says.
But, to return to an earlier query, there must be times when she wishes she had embarked on a less stressful career path. "You deal with things day by day. Obviously, things piss me off, but you get over it, and you just go and do the hoovering. It is really not as dramatic as all that."
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End goes on general release on Friday