Keira knightley’s swashbuckling days are over for good. The Oscar-nominated actress shoots her last scene today as pirate wench Elizabeth Swann in the Pirates Of The Caribbean films and she has told the movie’s producers that she doesn’t want to participate in any further sequels. Keira’s co-star in the series, Johnny Depp, has already said that he would consider playing the ramshackle pirate Captain Jack Sparrow – famously modelled on Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards – as long as the scripts remained good. Depp has an added incentive to carry on with the films because he’s getting a share of the lucrative Jack Sparrow merchandising. The third instalment, At World’s End, has been shooting on and off for a year. (Production shut down at one point because of bad weather.) In between filming, Keira was nominated for a best actress Academy Award for Pride And Prejudice, attended various Knightley: Buckled her last swash premieres of Dead Man’s Chest: Pirates Of The Caribbean 2 (the DVD of which comes out on November 20) and then made Atonement, with director Joe Wright. Shooting resumed in late summer and Keira was reunited with Depp and some of England’s finest actors (and most notorious mickey-takers); men such as Bill Nighy, Mackenzie Crook, Tom Hollander and Jack Davenport. "I’ve been playing this girl since I was 17," Keira told me on the set of Atonement. "I’m 21 now and I’m onto very different things, but it’s fun to try to invest Elizabeth with some rebellious spirit. "But what I’m doing in Atonement is very different. I mean, she is a grown-up woman!" Keira is far too polite to say, but I suspect that she won’t be sorry to say goodbye to Elizabeth Swann.
Daily Mail
Although she will have a career post POTC, I never understand why actors leave a sucessful franchise.
