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Movies & TV

01st Jun 2016

Irish director John Carney’s public apology to Keira Knightley

Tony Cuddihy

“Mea culpa.”

Irish director John Carney has publicly apologised to Keira Knightley over remarks he made about working with her on the film, Begin Again.

Carney, who also helmed Once and Sing Street, had said some very uncomplimentary things about Knightley’s ‘entourage’ and ‘levels of self-analysis’ in a recent interview with The Independent.

“I learned that I’ll never make a film with supermodels again,” he had said.

“I like working with actors and I wanted to come back to what I knew and enjoy film-making again — not that I didn’t enjoy Begin Again, but Keira has an entourage that follow her everywhere so it’s very hard to get any real work done.

“Keira’s thing is to hide who you are, and I don’t think you can be an actor and do that.

“I don’t want to rubbish Keira, but you know it’s hard being a film actor and it requires a certain level of honesty and self-analysis that I don’t think she’s ready for yet and I certainly don’t think she was ready for on that film.”

Carney has now come out and apologised on Twitter after first contacting the actress personally.

He admitted his remarks were ‘petty,’ ‘mean’ and ‘hurtful.’

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