Film

Directors Are Defending Keira Knightley Against John Carney’s Douchey Comments

"I’ll never make a film with supermodels again," he said about the Oscar nominee.

by Sinead Stubbins  1 June 2016

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In an interview with The Independent over the weekend, director John Carney made some very pointed and unnecessarily nasty comments about Keira Knightley, who he worked with in the pretty shitty movie, Begin Again.

Carney, who comes off as quite arrogant and pretty sexist in the piece, says a number of things about how difficult it was to work with Knightley, including that it taught him to “never make a film with supermodels again” (FYI Keira Knightley is not a supermodel, but she is an Oscar nominee!). He also made sure to praise Knightley’s Begin Again co-stars Mark Ruffalo and Maroon 5 front-man Adam Levine, for being “unpretentious” and “a joy to work with”.

“I like to work with curious, proper film actors as opposed to movie stars,” Carney said, while presumably staring into a mirror. “It’s hard being a film actor and it requires a certain level of honesty and self-analysis that I don’t think she’s ready for yet and I certainly don’t think she was ready for on that film.” 

Right. Safe to say, the internet was none too jazzed about Carney’s assessment of Knightley, particularly several directors who she’s worked with in the past. This included Mark Romanek (Never Let Me Go), Lorene Scafaria (Seeking a Friend for the End of the World), and Lynn Shelton (Laggies). 

You’re all right Knightley, you’re all right.