Quickfire Q&A: Keira Knightley - romantic scenes, comic book movies and faking it with a guitar

Screen beauty Keira Knightley may be about to giver her Kalxons husband James Righton a run for his money as she plays a romantic singer-songwriter in her new film Begin Again.

The 29-year-old stars opposite Mark Ruffalo and is joined by James Corden and Maroon 5 frontman Adam Levine in his big screen debut.

Knightley stopped by the Ham Yard hotel in London to answer some quick questions about her latest role.

Some actors say they think of sad experience when working on sad scenes in films. As Begin Again is a romantic comedy, do you think of your husband when performing the more romantic scenes?

When I do sad scenes, I don’t think about sad things that happened in my life. It’s about the script and the story. In exactly the same way in romantic scenes, I think of the script and story and try and do that justice. Like a proper actress, I know!

Did your husband James give you any advice for the singing scenes?

He didn’t give any. He was like “aw, you’ll be fine! Don’t worry about it!”

In the film you play guitar – is that a skill you’ve retained?

I can’t play guitar but I think I could fake it. I knew what the chords were for the songs and I could kind of play them really badly but I couldn’t play and sing at the same time. Who knew that would be so difficult?

What was it like working with Adam Levine? How do you rate him as an actor?

He is great. He’s just lovely and an amazing entertainer. He’s a total natural and I kept forgetting it was his first film. I thought he was totally sensational.

And you worked with Mark Ruffalo who is very focused on Avengers at the moment. Would you consider getting involved in an action comic book movie?

If I found one that I liked. I read quite a lot of them but I haven’t found one that has been right at that particular moment.

Do you think there is a lack of strong or realistic female characters in comic book films?

I don’t think you look for realistic female characters in comic book movies. I don’t think you look for realistic male characters in comic book movies. I don’t think that’s what they are about. Anne Hathaway was great as Catwoman. And Scarlett Johansson [who plays Black Widow in Marvel films] is always wonderful.