Self-study activity:
Watch the interview and answer the questions. The activity is suitable for intermediate 2 students.
1 How well does Keira sing and play the guitar?
2 What happened to her fingers after playing the guitar for a while?
3 What's 'the other thing that's interesting about this movie'?
4 What's Keira's marital status?
5 What's Keira's strategy in real life to avoid talking to men?
6 How does she come across in real life with men? What impression do they get from her?
7 What period in history is she interested in?
8 What the relationship of Keira's beloved ones with music?
9 On what condition did Keira's father allow his wife to have another child?
10 How much money does Keira need to live on?
You can self-correct the activity by reading the transcript below.
Hi I’m Belinda Luscombe from Time. You know that guy who like totally betrayed you, and you wanted to make him super bad? Well, Keira Knightley does that in her new movie, Begin Again, and she’s here to discuss that and other things with us. Keira, welcome.
Thank you.
So, in this movie, Begin Again, you sing. Can you actually sing?
I mean, it is my actual voice in the film, but no, I’m not a singer (1). This one was pre-recorded in a studio and then we did it to playback.
And you played guitar?
I learned how to play the songs on guitar for this film. I wasn’t very good (1). I could never sing and play at the same time, so we had to do takes where I’d sing and I’d try and it wouldn’t happen. And then takes where my fingers would be doing the right thing.
So you’re going to keep up the guitar?
No, literally I was so happy to put the guitar down and never pick it up again. Well, the fingers they do actually bleed, I mean they bleed (2), and then they kind of get calloused, and then I sort of put it down for a while and I thought, I can’t be bothered to go through that again.
The other thing that’s interesting about this movie is that there is a kind of a few interesting relationships (3). The first one is between your character and Mark Ruffalo’s character, which is sort of mentor, mentee. I mean, you sort of rescue him and he sort of rescues you, I guess.
Yeah.
But there’s a possible, maybe romance going on that you can’t quite figure out yet. It seemed to me in the movie that the, your character is like, I’m not gonna down that road. And that must’ve happened to you in real life too, right? You must have this developed some way of, not now, because you’re married (4), but of turning away potential suitors. Girls often have that 10,000 yard stare?
Oh, yeah.
Where they like, I’m not looking either way. I’m just looking straight ahead so…
Yeah. I’ve used that one.
You’ve used that.
Yeah, that’s always a good one, isn’t it, stare straight ahead, don’t make eye contact (5), that kind of thing.
That kind of thing.
Yeah.
Is there any, have people come onto you…
I’m a bit of an ice queen, so I think I get quite like a frightening exterior (6). So generally speaking unless I’m kind of soli… you know, unless I’m up for it, they don’t.
You’re too intimidating.
I’m far too intimidating (6).
You scare them away.
Yeah.
Is there an era that you particularly like or feel more drawn to than others? Because you have done a lot of history stuff.
I’m always interested in the 40’s. I think that Second World War period I find really interesting (7), because it’s sort of its statistics like the fact that STDs went through the roof and pregnancies went through the roof with people out of wedlock. And you think it’s funny because we have such a set notion of exactly what that period was like. But the extreme kind of nature of literally death falling from the sky around you and that kind of… er that, that moment when you don’t know if tomorrow is going to be your last day and how you live within that, I find, I find really interesting and I’m really interested in that kind of period to play with.
In the film, Ruffalo, Ruffalo’s character hears you sing this one song and it kind of he hears how he will produce it and it kind of transfixes him. Do you, do you remember having that transfixing moment with that song?
To tell you the truth, I don’t really listen to music. I know nothing about it at all, and it was sort of one of the reasons why I wanted to do this piece because I’m obviously I’m married to a musician. My brother has been in bands for most of his life (8). My fa… everybody around me is completely obsessed my music, and I don’t have that thing, I don’t… I think my brain doesn’t quite work in that way, so I will try and listen to it, I never think to put it on, I never like… I’m not one of those people that can say, oh it was this band, and this was the single and these are the lyrics. I have no idea. So, that’s kind of what I enjoyed about this was to try and get my head into that mind of a person who does express himself emotionally and creatively for music because I don’t.
Can you do a quick round of true or false?
Here we go.
Ian McShane was your drama teacher.
Yeah, but not, that Ian McShane.
See, there you go.
Different man, same name.
You didn’t have…
Yup!
… foul language in your drama class.
I didn’t. Well, I sometimes did, but still not that Ian McShane.
Your father did not let your mother have you until she had written another play (9).
Her first play. That’s true.
Her first play.
Yeah.
And it was a big success.
It was a big success. They didn’t have the money to have another child, and she’d given up acting. And so he said that you have to sell a script, and then you can have a child. And that’s what happened.
And then they got you!
And then they got me.
Wow. You er… live on $50,000 a year.
That’s not true.
I didn’t think it was true.
No.
Did you try it for a year?
No! I don’t know where this has come from. I’ve said all the way it’s not true. I mean, I wish it was true. That would be incred… yeah, I mean it’s, it’s a good amount of money to live on, but no, it’s not true (10).
Keira Knightley, thanks so much.
Thank you very much.
