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Did you know that Keira Knightley filmed some of her best movies before she turned 20? The British actress shot her Star Wars: Episode I role, Bend It Like Beckham, the first Pirates of the Caribbean, Pride & Prejudice and Love Actually all before entering her twenties. Looking back, the casting director of the latter Christmas classic admits in retrospect that the actress was too young to play her famed role of Juliet.
As you may recall, in 2003’s Love Actually, Keira Knightley plays a newly married young woman to Chiwetel Ejifor’s Peter. As the movie progresses, we learn that Peter’s best man Mark, played by Andrew Lincoln, is secretly in love with Juliet and makes it known through a romantic moment involving a boombox and cue cards. Ejiofor is eight years older than Knightley, whilst Lincoln is 12 years older than her. Here’s what Love Actually casting director Fiona Weir recently said about the subject:
She was quite young when everyone thought she was older than she was because she’d been acting since she was little. She was, really strictly speaking, too young for the part. But she had this wonderful, open, joyous quality which Richard really wanted. And I think it worked, I think we believed that she was married to Chiwetel [Ejiofor] and the object of great love for Andrew Lincoln.
In an interview with The Messenger, Weir shared her thoughts on Knightley playing her Love Actually role at the age of 18. Looking back, the casting director said the actress was “too young” for the part, but she won over director Richard Curtis due to her “open, joyous quality” that the filmmaker wanted for the role of Juliet. Weir thinks the casting “worked” and remains believable as the movie celebrates its 20-year anniversary.
Knightley had the opportunity to be part of one of the most iconic scenes in modern movie history with the casting, this, of course, referring to the moment Andrew Lincoln’s Mark shows up outside her door with cue cards expressing his love for her. (The movie is currently available to stream with a Netflix subscription.) Knightley is perhaps believably older than 18 in the movie, but in reality, it’s rather unlikely an 18-year-old in this day and age would be newly married, and the actress was among some of the youngest cast members in Love Actually.
Knightley made Love Actually just ahead of the actress heading off to the Caribbean to film the first entry of Disney’s Pirates franchise, The Curse of the Black Pearl. Weir shared that the House of Mouse “wanted to whisk her off,” but the Love Actually production did “quite a bit of clever scheduling” to make sure she could play Juliet before going off to co-star opposite Johnny Depp’s Jack Sparrow in the 2003 hit.
As the Christmas season soon kicks off, you can check out the 2023 Christmas movie schedule and read up on Keira Knightley’s next Christmas-themed project, Netflix’s Black Doves.