Best Actress 2013: Keira Knightley, Can a Song Save Your Life?

Keira Knightley has been kind of under the radar lately, don't you think?  After she left the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, she has been endeavoring smaller ventures with an assortment of directors.  Even when she gathers Oscar buzz for a role, she can fall short on the awards circuit like with A Dangerous Method and Anna Karenina without appearing like she failed.  It's like she slowly accumulating a respectable, but not overbearing oeuvre that is building to ... something.  Along with reteaming with Joe Wright this year, as well as working with David Cronenberg, she has aligned forces with Francois Girard, John Maybury, Saul Dibb, Mark Romanek, Massy Tadjedin, and William Monahan.  Attached mostly to period dramas, she switched things up by costarring with Steve Carrell in the science fiction romance Seeking a Friend for the End of the World, directed by Lorene Scafaria.  The $10M production didn't go anywhere, but it signified that she's ready for a new direction.  As it's important for any actor these days to remain relevant by starring in sure-fire hits, Knightley has returned to her first huge Hollywood movie since Pirates with Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan, starring Chris Pine, directed by Kenneth Branagh.  She secured the role over Jessica Biel, Kate Beckinsale, Evangeline Lilly, and Felicity Jones.  She was also slated to play the role of Effie Gray in Untouched, but its competing twin Effie starring Dakota Fanning is way ahead of the game.

That leaves Can a Song Save Your Life?  Knightley took over the role from Scarlett Johansson for Once director John Carney.  He broke hearts and rung out tears five years ago with his international love story.  Song concerns a music executive who takes a younger musician under his wing.  It's not clear who plays whom and how much instrument learning was required, but the movie costars Mark Ruffalo, Hailee Steinfeld, and Adam Levine, and Knightley appears to have a substantial role.  The production team includes Judd Apatow and Exclusive Media Group and filmed Summer 2012 in New York City.