'Pirates' damsel is a feisty handful

With her ethereal good looks and elegant British accent, Keira Knightley has been playing princesses or variations thereof for most of her young career, beginning with her bit appearance as the substitute Queen Padme in "Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace" (1999). In "Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl," which opened nationally on Wednesday, Knightley — "wiry and beauteous," Elvis Mitchell wrote in The New York Times — falls in with a band of ragtag pirates led by a bobbing and weaving Johnny Depp. In her previous film, "Bend It Like Beckham," Knightley is a middle-class girl whose athletic ability makes her an aristocrat of the soccer field.

Her role in "Pirates" began "as very much a classic damsel in distress," Knightley said, taking time out from a costume fitting in Dublin, Ireland. "But as we went into filming, it was a mutual decision between everybody — especially Gore Verbinksi, the director, and the two writers — that she should be a bit more of an action hero and take her life into her own hands. So as things went on, I started doing a lot more action, and she became much, much feistier. She turned into a 21st-century girl in an 18th-century world.

"But it was all very spontaneous," Knightly added. "So I didn't do any training for the film at all because I was never meant to do any of the stunts. Gore would come up to me on the set and say, 'Climb up the side of this boat,' and I climb up the side of the boat and beat people over the head with things, which was great fun. But I never got a sword, which I got rather angry about. All I wanted was a sword. And I never got one, ever! I'm starting to get over it now, but it's going to take some time."

In the film she is shooting in Dublin, "King Arthur," she is a Guinevere with a difference. The new film, directed by Antoine Fuqua ("Training Day") takes a more historical approach to the Arthurian myths than most Camelot movies.

"There's a theory that the actual King Arthur was a Roman general named Arturius Rex at around the fall of the Roman Empire," Knightley said. "It's set at a time when the Picts in England are in an uprising against the Romans. And Guinevere is a Pict, and being a Pictish woman, she will be fighting with all the men. Guinevere gets swords, axes, knives, bows and arrows and a horse."