Keira Knightley Reveals Why She Doesn't Do Films Set in Modern Day: 'Female Characters Nearly Always Get Raped'

Keira Knightley is on the cover of Variety‘s latest issue.

Here’s what the 32-year-old actress had to share with the mag:

On not doing films set in modern day: “With the rise of Netflix and Amazon we’re 
seeing some strong female characters and
 female stories on streaming services. I don’t 
know about films as much. I don’t really 
do films set in the modern day because
 the female characters nearly always get
 raped. I always find something distasteful 
in the way women are portrayed, whereas 
I’ve always found very inspiring characters 
offered to me in historical pieces. There’s
 been some improvement. I’m suddenly 
being sent scripts with present-day women who aren’t raped in the first five pages and aren’t simply there to be the loving girlfriend or wife.”

On her experience with Harvey Weinstein: “My experience with Harvey Weinstein was always very professional. He was very good on the films we made. I was aware of his reputation of being a bully. He was famous for phoning people in the middle of the night and screaming at them. He didn’t do that to me, and he certainly never asked me for massages or anything like that. I wasn’t aware of any allegations or rape or sexual assault against him. For the first time people are sharing their stories. People have been absolutely terrified to talk about it and were scared of retribution, so I don’t think everybody knew the extent of what was going on.”

On finding fame at 18 in Pirates of the Caribbean: “I found it pretty horrific. I’m not an extrovert, so I found that level of scrutiny and that level of fame really hard. It was an
age where you are becoming, you haven’t become, and you need to make mistakes. It’s a very precarious age, particularly for women. You’re in some ways still a child.
It was traumatic, but it set up the rest of my career. So looking back, would I do anything different? No, I wouldn’t because I’m unbelievably lucky now, and my career is in a place where I really enjoy it, and I have a level of fame that’s much less intense. I can deal with it now, and that’s great. But at the time, it was not so great, and took many years of therapy to figure it out.”

For more from Keira, visit Variety.com.