Don’t take ageism lying down, says Keira Knightley

Keira Knightley talks ageism, following the actress fane at a young age.

After shooting to fame at 16 in 2002’s Bend It Like Beckham, Knightley, 37, has told what it’s like to grow older under the glare of the spotlight.

‘A lot of the conversations I’ll have with my girlfriends are, “Oh my god, I’ve got a line [wrinkle]”,’ she said. ‘Change is always tricky. We’re taught that it’s bad. We’re taught we don’t want grey hair.

‘You’ve got Madonna on the one hand, and we’re told that’s not the right thing, then you have someone else, where we’re told, “They looked better 20 years ago”. How are we, culturally, meant to age?’

The two-time Oscar nominee described her early taste of fame as ‘quite an entrance into life’.

Knightley, who shares daughters Edie, seven, and three-year-old Delilah with musician husband James Righton, 39, also explained why she wanted to change the tide of her career after playing Elizabeth Swann in the Pirates Of The Caribbean films.

‘It was interesting coming from being really tomboy-ish to getting projected as quite the opposite,’ she. ‘I felt very constrained. I felt very stuck. So, the roles afterwards were about trying to break out of that.’

Knightley will next be seen as real-life US journalist Loretta McLaughlin in the Boston Strangler, out on March 17.