Pirates of the Caribbean fans 'never been able to watch it the same' after learning Keira Knightley's age in first film

Pirates of the Caribbean fans have said they’ll ‘never’ be able to watch the iconic movie the same again after learning a key fact about the cast.

And no, it’s got nothing to do with the allegations made against the star Johnny Depp.

Instead, it’s how old Keira Knightley was in the first film of the Disney franchise with Orlando Bloom.

If you can believe it, it’s actually been decades since Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl landed on screens - all the way back in 2003.

But that wasn’t Knightley’s first role, obviously. The British star apparently demanded an agent at the age of just three but had to wait until she was six years old until that came true.

At the age of 12, she landed the role of Natalie Portman’s double in Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace.

She then went on to feature in a number of roles, like the iconic Bend it Like Beckham when she was just 16.

With her acting career starting so young, you’d think it was common knowledge that Knightley wasn’t exactly a full-blown adult when she first starred as Elizabeth Swann on board the pirate ship.

But apparently, that’s not the case as people are late to realising the star was only 17 when the legendary movie began filming.

One film fan said on X: "Keira Knightley being like 17 when she filmed Pirates of the Caribbean shakes me to my core."

Another wrote: "This really just impresses upon me how f**king talented she is as an actress. Like god damn girl you haven’t even been alive long enough to have this type of range."

Keira Knightley starred as Elizabeth Swann (Walt Disney Pictures)

A third added: "She looked 25 at 17 and stayed looking 25 to this very day."

While a fourth chimed in: "I've never been able to watch it the same one I learned that. My brain is constantly going, 'she's 17!!' And then I think about what I was doing at 17... or 35."

While it was a huge gig for the now 40-year-old, Knightley previously revealed the reality of the fame she got off the back of the film wasn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

The actor explained that she underwent 'many years of therapy' to deal with her meteoric rise to success, which she described as 'pretty horrific'.

Discussing her struggles in a 2018 interview with Variety, Knightley explained: "I’m not an extrovert, so I found that level of scrutiny and that level of fame really hard.

"It was an age where you are becoming, you haven’t become, and you need to make mistakes.

"It’s a very precarious age, particularly for women. You’re in some ways still a child. It was traumatic, but it set up the rest of my career."