While Knightley is clear with how she feels about the effects of fame, the two-time Oscar nominee admitted, too, that her experience with it has also had its benefits.
“It’s very brutal to have your privacy taken away in your teenage years, early 20s, and to be put under that scrutiny at a point when you are still growing,” she shared. “Having said that, I wouldn’t have the financial stability or the career that I do now without that period. I had a five-year period between the age of 17 and 21-ish, and I’m never going to have that kind of success again. It totally set me up for life.”
Knightley added, “Did it come at a cost? Yes, it did. It came at a big cost. Knowing the cost, could I, in all good conscience, say to my kid, you should do that? No. But am I grateful for it? Yes. But then that’s life, isn’t it?”