Keira Knightley takes on her first major singing role in 'Begin Again'

Keira Knightley stars with Mark Ruffalo in the movie 'Begin Again.' 'The whole thing was out of my comfort zone,' Keira Knightley said. 'I am not a singer. I didn't know how to do that.'

|
Andrew Schwartz/The Weinstein Company/AP
Keira Knightley stars in 'Begin Again.'

British actress Keira Knightley, known for playing tragic heroines in period dramas, strayed into new territory with her first major singing role in "Begin Again," a feel-good film about the music industry and starting over.

"Begin Again," which opened in wide release on July 11, was written and directed by Ireland's John Carney, whose 2006 indie musical "Once" nabbed the best original song Oscar for "Falling Slowly."

"Once" was also adapted into a Broadway show and won eight Tony awards, including best musical.

Like its predecessor, "Begin Again" is laced with music and much of it is sung by Knightley, along with Maroon 5 frontman Adam Levine, who makes his film debut.

"The whole thing was out of my comfort zone. I am not a singer. I didn't know how to do that," Knightley, a best actress nominee in 2006 for her role in "Pride & Prejudice," said in an interview.

"A lot of the film was improvised, and I had never done that before. I'd say that those two were major things to be grappling with," added the 29-year-old actress, who took voice lessons to prepare for the film.

Knightley plays Gretta, a British songwriter and reluctant singer, who arrives in New York with her longtime boyfriend Dave, played by Levine, just as he is about to hit the big time.

Fame clouds his judgment and he strays, leaving a bereft Gretta on the verge of returning home when she is discovered by a chain-smoking, down-and-out record producer named Dan, played by Oscar nominee Mark Ruffalo.

"Essentially, what it is about is people falling down in life and trying to pick themselves back up, whether that is romantically or whatever," said Knightley.

Dan persuades Gretta to record her songs live on the streets of New York for a CD to revive his nonexistent career. Along the way, the two strike up an unusual friendship.

Ruffalo describes his own character's transformation.

"I like the meditation on the character's journey back to his creative self from this material world, and coupled with a mid-life crisis and a marriage that is going through a transition," Ruffalo said about the role.

"There is just a lot of fertile ground," he added about the film that premiered at the Toronto Film Festival last year.

Catherine Keener ("Capote") plays Dan's estranged wife, Oscar nominee Hailee Steinfeld ("True Grit") his rebellious daughter, and 2012 best actor Tony winner James Corden ("One Man, Two Guvnors") is Gretta's struggling musician friend Steve.

Grammy-winning rapper CeeLo Green and Yasiin Bey, formerly known as hip hop artist Mos Def, play Dan's music colleagues.

Ruffalo, whose career started in the theater, wouldn't mind if, like "Once," Carney's new film is adapted for the stage.

"I think this could be an easy move," he said. "So much of the work is already done."

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 takes on her first major singing role in 'Begin Again'
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/The-Culture/Movies/2014/0714/Keira-Knightley-takes-on-her-first-major-singing-role-in-Begin-Again
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe