Keira Knightley on Why She’s Never Watched Pirates of the Caribbean as Orlando Bloom Calls for a New Film

Keira Knightley has revealed the unlikely reason that she’s never watched herself in Pirates Of The Caribbean, despite the iconic movie’s catapulting her to stardom.

The actress, 40, who played Elizabeth Swann in four films, admitted that the action adventure’s severe close ups meant her ‘large face’ had put her off.

If that wasn’t enough Keira also confessed to only watching beloved Christmas movie Love Actually, in which she plays Juliet, only once. 

During an appearance on Scott Mills’ Radio 2 Breakfast show on Monday she said: ‘I just feel there’s too much face. There’s just such a lot of face.  Really close up large face. It’s just, nobody needs to see that’.

Keira went on to admit that she had forgotten much of what happened to her movie characters after playing so many, something the host said ‘blew his mind’.

She went on: ‘I have only seen Love Actually once. I saw it at the premiere and I have never seen it. I think I was eighteen. So, over twenty years ago I saw Love Actually’. 

It comes after her Pirates co-star Orlando Bloom, 48, teased a possible return of the swashbuckling franchise earlier this year.

There has been talk of a sixth film ever since Dead Me Tell No Tales debuted, with a report in April claiming the next film would be a reboot, possibly without Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow. 

While nothing has been confirmed about a sixth film by Disney yet, producer Jerry Bruckheimer hinted last year that there were two separate Pirates movies being developed, one with Depp and one without.

Orlando appeared on This Morning in June, promoting his new film Deep Cover with Bryce Dallas Howard and Nick Mohammed, where he was asked about the future of the franchise.

While he admitted that he didn’t know anything about a future sequel, he definitely seemed interested in returning. 

‘Well, I don’t know, I can’t say anything at the moment because I really don’t know, but there’s definitely…’ and when asked if it was about ‘availability,’ he said it was, ‘nothing like that.’ 

‘I think they’re trying to work out what it would all look like, I personally think it’d be great to get the band back together,’ Orlando admitted. 

‘That would be great, but there are always different ideas, and so we’ll see where it lands,’ Bloom revealed. 

The franchise clearly still holds a beloved place in his heart, since he responded to his co-star Keira’s 2024 comments about the films.

She told The Times back in November that the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise was, ‘making and breaking’ her simultaneously.

‘I was seen as s*** because of them, and yet because they did so well, I was given the opportunity to do the films that I ended up getting Oscar nominations for,’ Knightley said.

She added that they were, ‘the most successful films I’ll ever be a part of, and they were the reason that I was taken down publicly. So they’re a very confused place in my head.’

Orlando responded in Entertainment Weekly, stating, ”It was such a huge moment in time that is almost like… it feels almost like another lifetime now.’ 

‘I definitely understand where Keira was coming from, and she does wonderful things,’ the actor said, ‘I have a lot of positive takeaways.’

The Pirates of the Caribbean franchise – spawned from the hit Disney theme parks ride of the same name – has grossed over $4.5 billion worldwide.

It was also the first ever movie franchise to spawn two separate $1 billion films – Dead Man’s Chest ($1.1 billion) and On Stranger Tides ($1.046 billion).