Keira Knightley and Adam Levine discuss their new music movie 'Begin Again'

Keira Knightley sings onscreen in the film, while Adam Levine made his film acting debut. Keira Knightley recently starred in 'Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit.'

|
Evan Agostini/Invision/AP
Keira Knightley (center), Hailee Steinfeld (l.), and Adam Levine (r.) star in 'Begin Again.'

For Keira Knightley and Adam Levine, their movie "Begin Again" was an experience of firsts.

Knightley, an accomplished actress, sings in the movie, whereas Levine, frontman of the band Maroon 5, acts.

The two admitted that leaving their comfort zones made them uneasy but that they related to each other's nerves.

"I kept telling her she was great and she wouldn't believe me, and she told me that I wasn't bad at acting either but I didn't believe her, so it was perfect," Levine said as the film closed the Tribeca Film Festival.

"I was completely terrified," Knightley, 29, emphasized of her singing.

"I didn't anticipate being as frightened as I was. I said yes to doing it and I was, 'Oh, it's gonna be fine, it's gonna be fine,' and then suddenly I found myself in a studio with real people who did it for a living and I was like, 'I don't know what I'm doing. I'm pretending.'"

To walk a red carpet for his first acting role, Levine, 35, said he was "blown away."

Levine says he enjoyed the experience so much he might have caught the acting bug.

"My experience was so much fun," he said. "It made me kind of start to like it a little bit, but I don't know. I don't think you can really make those bold declarations, but we'll see."

So how did the two grade each other?

Knightley called Levine a "natural entertainer" who was "sensational in this film."

Levine, who serves as a judge and mentor on NBC's singing competition show "The Voice," said that if Knightley were to audition, he would want her on his team.

"Begin Again" is directed by John Carney, who was also behind the successful musical drama "Once." It also stars Mark Ruffalo, Hailee Steinfeld, and Catherine Keener. CeeLo Green also has a small role.

The movie opens in the U.S. in July.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Keira Knightley and Adam Levine discuss their new music movie 'Begin Again'
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/The-Culture/Movies/2014/0501/Keira-Knightley-and-Adam-Levine-discuss-their-new-music-movie-Begin-Again
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe