Since the movie is based on a Disney attraction, Keira did a lot of "research" for the film at the theme parks. She says, "I've been about 5 or 6 times. Once when I was 11, that was down in Florida. Then, when I came out here, I just had to do a lot of research with all my friends and my family. We went about a good 5 times, I think. So, yeah, I know it intimately."
As for working on the movie, Knightley claimed, "It was good fun, a lot of it. Looking back at it now, I can say it was great, but I think there were certain bits – when I was climbing up the side of a ship in a dress, heels, and a corset at 4:30 in the morning – that maybe I wasn't too happy. But, it was great fun and I was very lucky with the guys I was working with, because they're a wicked bunch."
Speaking of the guys, Keira says of working with her leading men: "Oh it's fine. I'm doing a film now with a lot of guys as well, so at the end of that I will be growing a beard … But, no, it was great. It was great. I was really lucky with the group. They're all good-looking – a little dirty in this film, I will admit, but they're a good-looking bunch, so I can't complain." Were they really as dirty as they look onscreen? "Yes … Actually, weirdly, they're all much dirtier than that. They actually look relatively clean onscreen from what they were. It was fairly disgusting, plus when we were in the Caribbean, it was so hot that everybody was smelling rather bad. So, it was really pleasant."
Keira was only 17 while shooting this film and things were moving fast with her career due to the popularity of Bend It Like Beckham. "That was the first thing I've been in that's been hugely successful. I think it's safe to say that. I did a film the year before, with Thora Birch (The Hole), actually – where I played a complete bitch. It was actually that that got me the part in Bend It Like Beckham."
As for other types of research for her role, Knightley said, "History was always my favorite subject anyway, and I love reading kind of biographies and that sort of stuff, so I knew a lot about the period before I started … I think Orlando did quite a bit. He always had sort of pirate books floating around, you know, and I should have read them, but I never did."
When asked if she was a fan of any other pirate movies, Keira replied, "Not really, because there aren't that many of them. You go back to the sort of Errol Flynn movies, and the real swashbuckling kind of things, and yeah, I knew about them. But, no, I've read a lot of pirate books, and when I was about five I think, I desperately wanted to be a pirate and have the hat and everything. But, no I haven't really seen many. It's not a genre that's ever really worked, is it? So, no, no definitely not. It was nice to be a part of, because you could think, 'Well, it can only get better.'"
Of working with Johnny Depp, Keira says, "He's just great. It's really weird, because he's a huge star of Hollywood, but he's such a nice bloke. We'd be over at the craft services wagon and he'd make a cup of tea and we'd have a chat and have a giggle, and do a scene then. He's just really, really, really lovely."
As for Johnny's take on his character in the movie, "I loved it. I loved it. He's one of the only actors around at the moment who will take those huge risks, and it was a risk. He's got the balls to play a part like that, and I think that's brilliant. Certainly as sort of a young actress, it was great to see somebody doing it. You know? And not being afraid to do it. I really admired him for that. Also, it was so kind of spontaneous, and it made us all giggle. It put a really kind of fun atmosphere around the whole time." So was Knightley's portrayal of her character influenced at all by watching Johnny Depp bring his character to life? "No. I mean, I think I just kind of felt I can't compete with that, so say the line and get on with it. It was just really great to see somebody have such a laugh with what he was doing … It's not everyday you get to do a pirate movie, you might as well go for it. That's what they did, it was great."
Working with her two, older costars and love interests for her character, Johnny Depp and Orlando Bloom, Keira claimed, "They were terribly well behaved ... They were both great, they were both really great."
Keira spoke about the stunt work required for her character. She says, "Yeah, it was me that climbed up the side of the ship … I also had a fantastic stunt girl, and wouldn't take it away from her, because she's my absolute hero … But, I did walk the plank and jump off the end of that. I did all that and I did a couple of the fight scenes, and fell down a series of holes and things. So, I did some of it. If you're doing an action movie, it takes like three weeks to film each of the sequences. It's going to be really boring if you don't do some of your own stuff."
Of course, in a pirate movie, somebody must walk the plank. Knightley described the experience of filming her plunge to the sea... "We shot for two or three days before I actually fell off the thing. I don't have vertigo or anything like that, I've never really had a problem with heights. But, standing on this plank, it was only 15 feet up, I got completely freaked out. Completely freaked out. And I think it was because we were out at sea, so the whole thing's moving. You're standing on this thing that's wobbling around, it's like a diving board, really. It's quite windy … I got very, very dizzy a lot and rather frightened. But at the end of the two days, you know, they said, 'You don't have to jump off, we've got the stunt girl.' I was like, 'If I'm going to stand here for two days, I'm going to jump off this thing.' So I did, and it was fantastic. It's actually one of my best days, I think."
Keira shared her views on the transition from London to living in L.A. for filming. "It's very different, it's very, very different. I mean, I don't live here or anything like that, but I was over here for it must have been just over two months, shooting this. I feel immediately at home in New York or Washington. That's fantastic. But, it takes a lot of getting used to being a Londoner, coming to L.A. So, it was strange. It took me about a month to sort of settle down. Then, I really liked it … My mom came with me the whole time, which was really great because I don't think L.A.'s a place I'd ever want to be in, on my own. So, yeah, she came with me and we get on really well. Then, some of my family came over for Christmas."
As for future plans, Knightley plans to return to college someday, but right now is focusing on acting. "I left about three months into my courses to do a film called Pure and another thing called Doctor Zhivago, and I haven't been back … [Doctor Zhivago] was actually for ITB, but it'll be coming out here. I think it's going to be on A&E at the end of July." The 2002 film she left school for, Pure, Keira described as, "Deeply, deeply art house, Pure. It's been out in England and got fantastic reviews, actually. It's not a film anybody's really going to go and see, I have to say. But, no, it was on the Independent Film Channel over here, I think. I got quite a lot of feedback, it was on very late at night, and obviously people were up very late at night and watching films like that. It's a really great piece by a director called Gillies MacKinnon, who I've been a fan of for a very long time, a Scottish director."