'Pirates of the Caribbean' was one of the biggest franchises of the '00s. Kiera Knightley said the films were the 'making and breaking' of her.

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

The actor played Elizabeth Swann, the daughter of a nobleman-turned-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 on 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 that she took a year off from acting at age 22 because "I literally felt like I was worthless."

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."

He said: "And so I did some theater in London. 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."