In ‘Black Doves,’ Keira Knightley is a mother and an assassin: ‘My teenage self is thrilled
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| Black doves keira knightley |
- The actor stars in a new Netflix thriller series as a woman leading a double life.
- When it comes to her children and acting, she says, “I wouldn’t allow them to do anything public until they were grown up.”
- Knightley also reflects on “Love Actually” and the cue card scene: “I mean, there was a creep factor at the time, right? Also, I knew I was 17.”
Since “Bend It Like Beckham” instantly made her a teenage superstar 22 years ago, Keira Knightley has done virtually everything an actor can do. She has appeared in World War II dramas and apocalyptic comedies. She has sung and played the guitar. She has even — gasp — performed in an American accent.
But unlike other A-list Oscar nominees, Knightley has yet to star in a glossy streaming series — until now. In “Black Doves,” a witty, blood-splattered spy thriller and surprisingly thoughtful exploration of friendship set in London at Christmas, she stars as a woman leading an increasingly complicated double life.
Written and created by Joe Barton (“Giri/Haji”), the Netflix series follows Helen Webb, the posh wife of a conservative politician and devoted mother of twins who has also spent many years as a professional assassin working for a covert organization called the Black Doves. When Helen’s secret lover Jason (Andrew Koji) is killed, her elusive boss, Reed (Sarah Lancashire) senses that Helen is in danger and persuades Sam (Ben Whishaw), a former Black Dove and Helen’s closest confidant, to come out of retirement to protect her. The old friends reunite to investigate Jason’s death, slowly unraveling a plot with global consequences and unleashing carnage across the city.
Knightley, whose last live-action TV role was in a BBC adaptation of “Doctor Zhivago” in 2002, has been looking to do something on the small screen for some time. After some heavier projects, like last year’s “The Boston Strangler,” she was keen to find something fun and fizzy.
“My teenage self is thrilled with this. Sometimes you have to listen to your teenage self and go, ‘This one’s for you,’ you know. I think she would have found this very cool,” says Knightley in a video call from London, where she lives with her husband, musician James Righton, and their two daughters.
Knightley also wanted a role that was gnarled and complicated enough to sustain her interest through a six-month shoot and potentially multiple seasons.
“Helen was just so weird and incorporated so many strange, oppositional things at the same time,” says Knightley, who also liked the idea of working close to home. “Not having to take my kids out of school was bliss.”
Barton, who met with Knightley early in the writing process, felt the actor was uniquely capable of capturing Helen’s numerous contradictions.
“People know the period drama, Jane Austen side. But she’s done ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ and ‘Domino,’ she’s done silly and also very serious. She’s a really fantastic, underrated actor,” he says, citing her ability, in films like “Atonement,” to play “characters that are desperate to break out from the societal restraints put on them. … She does ‘below the surface, striving to escape from something’ really well.”
Plus, she adapted seamlessly to the frantic pace of making television, Barton says: “Once you’ve survived Jerry Bruckheimer, you can survive a TV schedule.”
Knightley spoke to The Times about making “Black Doves,” which is now streaming, the perils of early fame and her unvarnished feelings about “Love Actually.” The conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Helen is this fascinating contradiction — a genteel Tory wife who is also a ruthless assassin. What was intriguing to you about her?
I loved the idea of this person who’s made a life choice 10 years ago that she cannot take back, and she’s regretting having to live with that decision and there being no way out. I thought that was very rich. As was the relationship with her husband. You’ve had children with this person. There is love there. But what is that love, if you’re betraying them the whole time?
We know very little about Helen’s backstory. Was that challenging for you as a performer?
She’s definitely an enigma. What I could create was an idea of what childhood might have been like for somebody to make the choices that she’s made. That is interesting to think about: somebody who has to feel that they have the power over people at all times, and that by betraying them, they have control. Where do you come from if you need that kind of control? If you need to betray them before they betray you?
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