• Keira Knightley recalled how she was told that she "wanted to be stalked" early in her career.
• Knightley became famous after starring in "Pirates of the Caribbean" and "Love Actually" in 2003.
• Now, she's opening up about how toxic Hollywood was for women in the early 2000s.

Keira Knightley was told she "wanted to be stalked" at the beginning of her career. The actor spoke about the "violent, misogynistic atmosphere" of Hollywood in the 2000s in an interview on Thursday.

The British actor became famous after landing roles in "Love Actually" and "Pirates of the Caribbean" in 2003 at 17-years-old. As a result, Knightley spent her late teens and early 20s under the press's microscope.

Speaking to the Los Angeles Times ahead of her new Netflix series, "Black Doves," Knightley recalled being told that she "wanted to be stalked" during her rise to fame.

In response to a question by the LA Times reporter about the culture of Hollywood back then, Knightley said, "I didn't think it was okay at the time. I was very clear on it being absolutely shocking. There was an amount of gaslighting to be told by a load of men that 'you wanted this.' It was rape speak. You know, 'This is what you deserve.'"

Knightley continued to paint a picture of the negative atmosphere in early 2000s Hollywood that women had to navigate.

She added, "It was a very violent, misogynistic atmosphere. They very specifically meant I wanted to be stalked by men. Whether that was stalking because somebody was mentally ill, or because people were earning money from it — it felt the same to me. It was a brutal time to be a young woman in the public eye."

The star is also conscious that despite the harassment and pressure she faced, her early work gave her "financial stability."

"It's very brutal to have your privacy taken away in your teenage years, early 20s, and to be put under that scrutiny at a point when you are still growing. Having said that, I wouldn't have the financial stability or the career that I do now without that period," she said.

Keira Knightley was 17 when she first starting filming the "Pirates of the Caribbean" franchise in 2003. She played Elizabeth Swann, the point of a love triangle opposite Orlando Bloom, who was 26 at the time, and Johnny Depp who was 22 years Knightley's senior.

She of said the five-year period of success in her early career, "It totally set me up for life. Did it come at a cost? Yes, it did. It came at a big cost."

The thing that got the actor through her turbulent era of fame was having people around her who were disconnected from Hollywood.

She added, "I had a separate life from the industry, and I've maintained that."

This isn't the first time that Knightley has opened up about the toxicity she endured at a young age.

In November, she recalled how her role in "Pirates of the Caribbean" was the main reason she was "taken down publicly."

In 2018, Knightley told The Hollywood Reporter that paparazzi constantly followed her because they wanted to tear her down.

"It was big money to get pictures of women falling apart because you [consumers] wanted them to be sexy, but you wanted to punish them for that sexuality," she said.

• Kiera Knightley played Elizabeth Swann in the "Pirates of the Caribbean" franchise.
• The five films collectively made $4.5 billion for Disney between 2003 and 2017.
• Knightley said the films were the reason she "was taken down publicly."

Kiera Knightley said the "Pirates of the Caribbean" franchise made her career, but it was also the reason she "was taken down publicly."

The actor played Elizabeth Swann, a nobleman's daughter who becomes a pirate, in four of the five movies, alongside Orlando Bloom and Johnny Depp.

She was a main character for the first three adventures, but did not return for 2011's "On Stranger Tides." Knightly reprised the role for a brief cameo at the end of 2017's "Dead Men Tell No Tales."

According to TheNumbers.com, the franchise made Disney $4.5 billion at the box office, but critics said her performance was wooden.

In an interview with The Times of London published Sunday, she said: "It's a funny thing when you have something that was making and breaking you at the same time.

"I was seen as shit because of them, and yet because they did so well, I was given the opportunity to do the films that I ended up getting Oscar nominations for.

"They were the most successful films I'll ever be a part of, and they were the reason that I was taken down publicly. So they're a very confused place in my head."

Knightley said she wouldn't appear in another major franchise following her experience with "Pirates of the Caribbean."

She said: "The hours are insane. It's years of your life, you have no control over where you're filming, how long you're filming, what you're filming."

Knightley previously spoke about the negative side of fame in 2018 when she told The Hollywood Reporter she took a year off from acting at age 22. "I literally felt like I was worthless," she said.

Bloom, who played Swann's love interest Will Turner, has also shared his reservations about starring in the movies.

In 2014, he told Variety that after he finished "Pirates of the Caribbean," he realized he hadn't had the chance to experiment as an actor because he had worked on major blockbusters from the start of his career.

He played Legolas, an elf, in "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy around the same time as "Pirates of the Caribbean," and he also worked with Ridley Scott on "Black Hawk Down" and "Kingdom of Heaven."

"And so I did some theater in London," he said. "I traveled a bit. I went to Antarctica on a science research boat just to sort of clear my head. And then I came back and started to try and develop some smaller movies that could stretch me and force me to grow; some worked, some didn't."