Don’t accept ageism, says Keira Knightley

Keira Knightley looks relaxed, sprawled out on a velvet green couch — but when the conversation turns to ageism, the actress argues we’ve only come sofa.

After rising to fame with Bend It Like Beckham in 2002 when she was 16, Knightley, 37, has opened up about what it’s like to grow older in the spotlight.

“A lot of the conversations I’ll have with my girlfriends are, ‘Oh my god, I have a line [wrinkle]’,’ she said. ‘Change is always difficult. We’re taught it’s bad. We’re taught we don’t want gray hair.

“On one side you have Madonna and we’ve been told that’s not right, then you have someone else where we’re told, ‘They looked better 20 years ago’. How should we age culturally?’

The two-time Oscar nominee described her early fame as “quite a stepping stone.”

Knightley, who shares daughters Edie, seven, and Delilah, three, with musician husband James Righton, 39, also explained why she wanted to turn the tide of her career after starring in Elizabeth Swann in the Pirates of the Caribbean films had played.

“It’s been interesting going from a real tomboy to quite the opposite,” she told the April issue of Harper’s Bazaar UK, out in stores tomorrow. “I felt very restricted. I felt very stuck. So the roles after that were about breaking out of that.”

Knightley will next star as real-life US journalist Loretta McLaughlin in Boston Strangler, which airs March 17.

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