Whatever Keira Knightley’s paying her publicist, it’s not enough.
By Burbanked on Sep 18, 2006 in Celebrities, Gossip | 4,163 views |
ring-ring. ring-ring.
“Yes, hello, this is Keira Knightley here talking to you on the phone now.”
“Why, yes, Warren, how are you?” pause. “I’m sorry…?”
“Yes, and Warren - how do I know you again? What is it that you do?”
“OH! You’re Publicity Warren. That’s right. I was thinking that you were the Warren who cuts the crusts off of my bread and removes 70% of the food from my plate at meal time.”
“Yes, well, before you say anything more, please let me just tell you that if you’re calling to send me to People magazine again, I simply refuse to go. I despise how they take their pictures with all of that ’smile for me now’ and ‘how about a smile, Keira’ and ‘what’s so sad in your life that you don’t ever want to smile, Keira?’ and ’say, look at this cute little puppy dog, Keira, doesn’t that make you want to smile just a little bit?’ and all of that.”
“Really? I’ve been rated the greatest ever Hollywood starlet? Ever? And big fat Reese Witherspoon didn’t win that, did she?”
And it gets scarier, after the jump.
“Who was I rated higher than?”
“I’m sorry. Who is Judy Garland?”
“Does she smile a lot in that movie?”
“Yes, that’s what I thought. Who else?”
“Shirley Temple? You mean the child with the hair?” pause. “And she smiles a lot, right?”
“Well, I think I probably also weigh less than her, so people kind of like that - ”
“Really? They love me more than Scarlett Johansson?”
Keira covers the receiver and must violently control herself to keep from smiling.
“I suppose that’s what she gets for pretending to be in that horrid London movie and for having those awful things on her chest and for constantly grinning like some kind of bloody circus clown and - ”
She’s forced to cover the receiver again while her body nearly convulses with a tiny little hint of a smile. She punches herself rapidly in the stomach until it passes.
“So does this - ”
And then she vomits.
“So does this thing mean I have to have some pictures taken or something?”
“Because I was thinking that I would either try the one where my lips are kind of opening - yes, with the lips and I’m all thinking and my breath goes out like ‘whoooooo’ - ”
“Yes, all right, but that was my turn to talk just then.”
“Or I could go back to the thing where I’m holding my body tightly, you know? And with that one I hold my mouth kind of open. Let me know if they want that one because I’ll have to go to the gym a bit. I’m so hideously fat and I really quite hate myself.”
“…oh. I really thought that I was saying that on the inside of my head.”
“Yes, well. I think that I’ll go now and have a bit to eat. Will you be coming by in case I need my crusts cut off - ”
“Oh, yes, right. Then never mind.”
click.
My blog-love affair with cartoonist Doug Savage’s terrific daily Savage Chickens (
(
because clearly Cage has decided to become action/thriller cinema’s first Polish great-grandma. (
Well, that’s too bad. Back a year or so ago when I heard that they’d be making a movie out of Judi and Ron Barrett’s terrific kids’ book Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, I hoped maybe it’d be made live-action. Handled well, the idea of seeing an actual town where it rained hotdogs and baked beans in an open-roof restaurant, as well as the bit where sanitation trucks clean up all the leftover rain/snow/food and feed it to the pets would be, I thought, a bundle of CG-imbued cinema fun. 
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Liz | Dec 21, 2007 | Reply
Kiera Knightley and Jack Davenport did a fantastic commentary on the first Pirates DVD, and nothing you say can convince me otherwise!
Seriously, she’s never struck me as irritating at all. Sure, she’s naturally skinny and looks good when she pouts, but why all the hate?
Burbanked | Dec 21, 2007 | Reply
Liz: I’ll disagree that she looks good when she pouts; I just think she looks, well, like she’s pouting. There’s really nothing special about that. My kids do it all the time, but at least with them it’s because their emotions are real.
I guess I’m just a guy who reacts this way to celebrity hype. When someone is touted as the Second Coming of Whatever, I can - however irrationally, I’d agree - turn my irritation dial way up in the other direction. The hype makes me want to find something of more substance, of realness in whoever’s getting the hype, to satisfy my own sense of whether or not the person is talented, intelligent, attractive or whatever.
I just haven’t seen it in Knightley. Most of what I read about her falls into the category of 1) she’s unbearably attractive (and sorry; it’s just my opinion, but she’s really not. she looks like a perennially angry 10-year-old boy) or 2) she abhors all of the attention heaped upon her, which annoys me to no end when publicity- and fame-starved celebrities of ANY kind complain so prodigiously about it.
And really, it’s not hate I’m throwing at her. It’s meant to be sarcastic fun. For the most part.
Michael Taylor | Dec 21, 2007 | Reply
I like the Ten Best idea, which is a good thing for those of us who only recently found “Burbanked”. It’s hard to find the time to comb through 500 past posts, so thanks for doing the work for us.
Ms. Knightley is indeed highly over-rated. A while back, Esquire ran a cover photo of the dumurely nude Knightley and Scarlett Johansen — and there was no comparision. Scarlett looked sleek, healthy, and gorgeous: a lovely young woman to inhabit the dreams of any guy with a pulse. Ms. Knightley appeared as though she’d just come off the Bataan Death March. With such a protrubing rib cage, she looked bony, birdlike, and distinctly unhappy — more like a concentration camp victim than sex symbol.
Eat, Kiera, and eat some more — then have your life coach teach you how to smile.
Burbanked | Dec 21, 2007 | Reply
Thanks, Michael - as an additional piece of self-serving information, the “Randomly Burbanked” bit at the top of this page’s middle content area is also a link to an article in the Burbanked archive. If the picture piques your interest, click on it and it’ll link to its related post.
As for Knightley: I’m with you; I simply don’t get the allure. Physical issues aside, she just never seems very happy about anything, which is a hard thing for me - who is not an overpaid and pampered actress for whom people jump up and down for me to work for them and whose financial security is all but locked down for eternity - to sympathize with whatever her woes might be.