Pirates of the Caribbean co-stars Depp and Knightley revealed what they thought of their on-screen kiss

Johnny Depp has previously spoken about kissing Pirates of the Caribbean co-star Keira Knightley while having a large age gap.

The two starred in three of the blockbuster swashbuckler films together back in the 2000s as Captain Jack Sparrow and Elizabeth Swann.

The Curse of the Black Pearl was the first title of the franchise, which was released back in 2003, with the likes of Orlando Bloom and Geoffrey Rush also starring.

Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl

In the film, Sparrow and Swann were involved in a love triangle with Bloom’s character, Will Turner, who Knightley’s character (rightly) ended up with.

The actor starred in the first film in the franchise when she was 17-years-old, and Knightley has previously come out and spoken about how she struggled with fame, admitting that the pressure was what made her shift her career towards smaller, independent films.

But it was the sequel that included the steamy moment with Depp’s character.

At the time of filming Dead Man’s Chest, released in 2006, Depp was 22 years older than the Pride and Prejudice star at 41, with the Edward Scissorhands actor later revealing how he’d felt about their on-screen kiss.

While talking to The Standard in 2012, he said: “Kissing someone you are not romantically involved with is always awkward, but the fact that Keira is twenty something years younger than me made it infinitely more awkward. Still, she was a good sport about it and we did what we had to do.”

Knightley also commented on the kiss in an interview with TMZ in 2006, saying: “I couldn’t ask for a better kissing scene with Johnny Depp actually I think my 14 year-old self was yelping with pleasure.

“It was fantastic! What more can a girl ask for? I’ve got Johnny Depp and Orlando Bloom and I get to kiss both of them. It’s wonderful!”

But looking back on that point in her life, Knightley said that she needed ‘many years of therapy’ to overcome how she felt with her meteoric rise to stardom following the franchise’s success.

The pair had a 20+ year age difference when they kissed (Dave Hogan/Getty Images)

Speaking with The Telegraph in 2019, the British actor said: “The fame that came with them I just couldn’t handle.

“So looking back, would I do anything different? No, I wouldn’t because I’m unbelievably lucky now, and my career is in a place where I really enjoy it, and I have a level of fame that’s much less intense.”

In a recent interview with The Times, she admitted that the experience of filming Pirates on set was ‘making and breaking you at the same time’.

“I was seen as s**t 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 [Pride & Prejudice and The Imitation Game],” she highlighted.

Knightley added: “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 in a very confused place in my head.”