Keira Knightley hasn’t done a large-scale, action spectacular since the third Pirates film , back in 2007, but she’s looking to get back in the groove thanks to her role in the upcoming Jack Ryan reboot.
“I thought, ‘I think I’d quite like to do something that’s just entertainment’” says the star. “Not just entertainment, but entertainment in that kind of Hollywood sort of run-around with explosions [ vein ].”
“I’ve always loved thrillers,” she continues. “Thrillers are incredibly difficult to do which is why there’s so few of them made now, and [ the Jack Ryan films ] have always been really good thrillers, so I sort of fancied that.”
Another factor in her decision to sign on as Cathy Ryan was the presence of Kenneth Branagh in the director’s chair, an actor Knightley had long dreamed of working with.
“I’m working with Kenneth Branagh who has been a hero of mine since I was about 6 or 7,” she gushes. “Getting to be directed by him and act with him is something that I just thought, ‘I want to do that.’”
Co-starring Chris Pine, Kevin Costner and Branagh as the film’s villain, Jack Ryan will open in the UK on 26 December 2013.
