Keira Knightley won’t be hoisting the colors of Pirates of the Caribbean for a fifth time. The English actress starred as Elizabeth Swann in four Pirates movies between 2003 and 2017 opposite Orlando Bloom and Johnny Depp, playing the governor’s daughter-turned-pirate king in all but one installment of the swashbuckling blockbuster franchise. Series producer Jerry Bruckheimer revealed Disney is developing two different Pirates of the Caribbean films, but it will be without Knightley: the mother of two says she’s retired from franchises.
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“I couldn’t go job to job [abroad] now,” Knightley told the U.K.’s Times. “I wouldn’t be in any way fair to them, and I wouldn’t want to. I’ve chosen to have children, I want to bring them up, so I’ve had to take a major step back.”
Knightley’s Swann was a pivotal character in the Pirates trilogy helmed by Gore Verbinski: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003), Dead Man’s Chest (2006), and At World’s End (2007). She briefly reprised her role as a cameo in the Joachim Rønning and Espen Sandberg-directed Dead Men Tell No Tales (2017), which reunited Swann with her husband for the first time in a decade: Flying Dutchman captain Will Turner (Bloom). A post-credits scene suggested the return of the Dutchman’s original captain, Davy Jones (Bill Nighy), and Will and Elizabeth’s returns in a potential Pirates of the Caribbean 6.
Although the two-time Oscar nominee reflected fondly on her time making the Pirates films, she ruled out ever returning to the franchise she co-headlined with Bloom and Depp.
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“It’s a funny thing when you have something that was making and breaking you at the same time. I was seen as sh-t 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,” the Pride & Prejudice and Imitation Game star said. “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.”
“The hours [on Pirates] 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 continued.
Knightley next appears in the Netflix Christmas thriller Black Doves, a six-episode spy series about an unlikely spy/assassin duo (Knightley and Paddington‘s Ben Whishaw) who uncover a vast conspiracy in the London underworld. She’s currently filming the cruise ship-set whodunnit The Woman in Cabin 10 with Guy Pearce and Hannah Waddingham, which may be as close as Knightley gets to once again sailing the high seas of Pirates of the Caribbean.
In June, Bruckheimer provided ComicBook with an exclusive update on the next Pirates of the Caribbean movie, penned by his Young Woman and the Sea writer Jeff Nathanson.
“We have a script that’s being written right now,” Bruckheimer said, adding: “So let’s hope that Disney likes it and they give us an opportunity to make it.” The producer previously confirmed Pirates of the Caribbean 6 would be a reboot in an interview with ComicBook, explaining that movie “is easier to put together [than Tom Cruise’s Top Gun 3] because you don’t have to wait for certain actors.” Without Knightley, Bloom, or Depp on board, the franchise has been eyeing a reboot with Barbie‘s Margot Robbie attached as star and producer.
