Director apologizes for slamming Keira Knightley
John Carney has publicly apologized for slamming Keira Knightley.
During a recent interview the ‘Sing Street’ director launched an attack on Keira, who starred in his 2013 movie ‘Begin Again’, blaming her for the movie’s shortcomings but after a massive backlash he took to Twitter to admit he was "petty, mean and hurtful".
In a post he captioned: "From a director who feels like a complete idiot," John wrote: "Recently, in a phone interview, the conversation turned to a discussion about a past film, Begin Again, starring Kiera Knightley. I said a number of things about Keira which were petty, mean and hurtful. I’m ashamed of myself that I could say such things and I’ve been trying to account for what they say about me. In trying to pick holes in my own work, I ended up blaming someone else. That’s not only bad directing, that’s shoddy behaviour, that I am not in any way proud of. It’s arrogant and disrespectful. Keira was nothing but professional and dedicated during that film and she contributed hugely to its success. I wrote to Keira personally to apologise, but I wanted to publicly and unreservedly apologise to her fans and friends and anyone else I have offended. It’s not something that I could ever justify and will never repeat (sic)."
John blasted two-time Oscar nominee Keira’s acting skills in his recent interview and described his new movie as "a small personal movie with no Keira Knightleys in it".
He said: "I learned that I’ll never make a film with supermodels again … I like working with actors and I wanted to come back to what I knew and enjoy film-making again — not that I didn’t enjoy Begin Again, but Keira has an entourage that follow her everywhere so it’s very hard to get any real work done … Keira’s thing is to hide who you are, and I don’t think you can be an actor and do that … I don’t want to rubbish Keira, but you know 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."
However, he faced an immediate backlash and a number of directors, who have worked with the 31-year-old actress, rushed to defend her.
Mark Romanek, who worked on ‘Never Let Me Go’ in 2010 with Keira tweeted: "My experience with #keiraknightley was utterly spectacular on every level. I have no clue what this guy is talking about. #arrogants**thead
"My recollection of #keiraknightley’s "entourage" was that her mum visited the set one day for an hour or two (sic)."
Lorene Scafaria, director of ‘Seeking a Friend for the End of the World’, tweeted: "I agree with Mark. Keira was a joy to work w/. Present & easy & really, really good at her job. Just lovely (sic)."
And Lynn Shelton from ‘Laggies’ added: "Working with #KeiraKnightley was magnificent, top to bottom. She is the real deal. #Knightleylove (sic)."
