凱拉·奈特利：成名得太早，人生再起步

凱拉·奈特利的成功不具有復(fù)制性。她的起點(diǎn)很高，就是跑龍?zhí)椎慕巧彩谴髱熂壢宋锊俚兜木拗?。在人生二十歲，她就完成了別人夢寐以求的“鯉魚躍龍門”。從賺得盆滿缽滿的商業(yè)大片到贏盡口碑的文藝小清新，她選片眼光獨(dú)到，堪稱“零失誤”。

但是，接下來的十年，她開始面對陌生的東西——批評。在《贖罪》里，演技高手暗暗較勁，除了她，所有人都給予了自己人生中驚艷的表演，就連僅僅出場十幾分鐘的瓦妮莎·雷德格瑞夫都輕易蓋過了奈特利的風(fēng)頭；《危險(xiǎn)方法》，兩大男主角強(qiáng)悍，“不瘋魔不為人”的演繹讓奈特利的嘶吼顯得那么蒼白與虛假，影評人甚至刻毒地說：“奈特利的做作讓觀眾希望她趕緊離開畫面?！薄栋材取た心崮取防?，奈特利意欲通過熟悉的古裝題材提醒人們她當(dāng)年名揚(yáng)奧斯卡的風(fēng)采，但是讓大家陶醉的不過是華麗的服飾和恢弘的歷史背景，僅此而已。

奈特利怎么了？她的演技一再受到質(zhì)疑，人們好像從“奈特利效應(yīng)”中恍然醒悟：原來奈特利根本不會演戲，她只是比較走運(yùn)而已。用中國人最樸素的哲學(xué)來解釋就是：運(yùn)氣皆有定，是會用完的。曾經(jīng)的嘖嘖稱奇，不過是一片浮云罷了。成名太早，或者說在肩膀沒有成熟到足以撐起巨大的名利時，這些所謂的贊美只不過是色彩斑斕的致幻劑。

What a 1）hectic and 2）heady career Knightley has had. She has been praised and razed， built up and torn down； variously hailed as the most vibrant British actor of her generation and dismissed as an 3）am-dram fake who got lucky. Hers is an apprenticeship that was played out on camera. It has bounced her from homegrown heartwarmers to Hollywood blockbusters to 4）costume dramas and back again， to the point where she can’t quite recall the work she has done or the people she knows.

In the past few years we have seen her as a hysterical psychiatric patient in A Dangerous Method and a doomed， tragic aristocrat in Anna Karenina. Today， however， Knightley has brought her long limbs and regal jawline into town to discuss a sunnier guise in a musical of sorts. The film is called Begin Again and that title is so 5）freighted with 6）corny significance that she keeps nodding at the poster， as though it is there as her 7）prompt. She explains that she had arrived at a crossroads， or maybe the end of act one. She was feeling 8）stuck in a rut， mired in neurotic roles， and longed to break herself free. Knightley rolls her eyes and dissolves with 9）mirth. “It’s like beginning，” she 10）hoots. “But it’s beginning again.”

Actually， I’m all for Knightley expanding her 11）repertoire； I just wish she had found herself a sharper playlist. In Begin Again， she stars as Greta， a heartbroken folk singer adrift in New York who helps a rumpled， down-on-hisluck record producer （Mark Ruffalo） up the road to redemption. The film is written and directed by John Carney and it plays like a moneyed， remastered version of his 2007 breakthrough Once. Begin Again lacks jeopardy； it lacks grit. For all their flirty 12）banter and 13）boisterous recording sessions， the characters in Once were barely 14）clinging on by their fingernails. Here， by contrast， they are largely 15）mooching and 16）wallowing， spinning mountains from molehills as the plot 17）shunts them between a series of 18）picturesque Manhattan backdrops.

Perhaps we should recap the recent decades—for her own benefit as much as anyone’s. She was raised in suburban west London， the daughter of dramatists， and famously requested an agent before she turned four. In her teens she took a small role in The Phantom Menace， starred in Bend It Like Beckham and picked up an Oscar nomination for her performance as Elizabeth Bennet in Pride and Prejudice. She has acted alongside Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean，suffered soulfully through Atonement and 19）flogged haircare products and Chanel perfume. But her runaway acclaim made her tabloid 20）catnip as well. She was forced to deny rumours that she suffered from an eating disorder and found herself stalked like a frightened 21）gazelle whenever she set out on foot. “I like walking，” she says 22）ruefully. “I know that sounds like a stupid thing. But I do like walking， and for a long time I couldn’t.”

She probably remembers more than she cares to admit. Success， she allows， arrived a little too soon. “I’ve definitely done all my learning publicly. And I’ve had to develop a thick skin because of that. So yeah， there would have been a comfortable way of doing it where I went to drama school and made tons of mistakes. If you could choose how success happens， that’s what I would have chosen. But of course you can’t. And if a moment comes， you have to jump，because it probably won’t come around again. So I chose to jump， knowing it was going to be brutal because I knew that I hadn’t learned enough. I didn’t know what I was meant to be doing.”

The way Knightley tells it， her equivalent of drama school was the set of Hollywood blockbusters and high-end costume sagas. She was 23）feted and 24）fawned over； she treated an Olympic ski jump as her 25）nursery slope. Maybe this accounts for the 26）flickering hostility that she seems to inspire. Few rising actors divide an audience to the extent that Knightley does. Where fans applaud the open， unguarded quality of her screen performances， others see an unformed ingenue playing dress-up in the mirror.

“The criticism was tough，” she says. “At school I’d always been good at things. And drama was always something I’d been good at. I was picked for good parts in the school plays and you form a sense of yourself from that. And then all of a sudden people are saying： ‘No， you’re shit. You don’t know what you’re doing.’ It’s a strange27）jolt in how you see yourself and how you connect to the thing that you love.”

In her mid-20s， around the time most actors are just getting started， she made a conscious decision to 28）edge back from the limelight； to take on smaller productions and find a place she felt comfortable. But she still seems unsure just how far she should go. Her heart tells her one thing and her head says another. “The majority of my work is still in the commercial field. It hasn’t gone hugely experimental， which I would really like to do.”

If there are other films she would like to be in， I don’t know what’s stopping her. Her presence alone may be enough to finance an ambitious， 29）leftfield little movie. Knightley pulls a face； the prospect seems to alarm her.“Yeah， it can do， but then your box office comes back into it，” she explains. “You’re only useful in financing those films if you’ve got a big success behind you， and they have a certain 30）shelf life. So your stake in financing those films goes down very quickly. That’s why you have to tread a careful line. That’s the game we’re all playing.”

I have the sense this is an issue that is probably best left to another day， another year. Who cares if Knightley does not quite know where she wants to go next？ She has， after all， some time on her side. She is just catching up with herself.

凱拉·奈特利的演藝生涯可謂忙碌不已，而又爭議不斷。她受到過贊美與奚落，經(jīng)歷過人生巔峰與低谷。在許多人眼中，她是英國同時代女星中的佼佼者，同時又被視為沒有真材實(shí)料的“花架子”，走紅全因運(yùn)氣眷顧。她的演藝軌跡就是被鏡頭完全展映出來的一段學(xué)徒生涯。她的戲路來回反復(fù)，從國產(chǎn)小清新電影到好萊塢巨作，再到古裝大片，接著又重新回歸，時至今日她已無從記起她參與過的作品和那些認(rèn)識的人。

在過去的幾年里，我們看到她在《危險(xiǎn)方法》中飾演歇斯底里的精神病人，而在《安娜·卡列尼娜》里則是劫數(shù)難逃、悲情絕望的貴族。但是，在今天，她將自己的標(biāo)志面目——修長的四肢和優(yōu)美的下頜——帶進(jìn)城里，在一部音樂劇中表現(xiàn)更為陽光的一面。這部電影叫《重新開始》，這名字充滿陳詞老調(diào)的寓意，以致她對著海報(bào)點(diǎn)頭不止，好像這對她人生有某種提示。她解釋說自己到了一個人生交叉點(diǎn)，又或者這是人生一個篇章的結(jié)點(diǎn)。她感覺到自己重復(fù)舊路，千篇一律，陷在那些神經(jīng)兮兮的角色里，因此渴望有所突破。奈特利轉(zhuǎn)動著眼珠，最后綻放笑容：“就像一個開始，”她高聲大笑道，“重新出發(fā)了。”

事實(shí)上，我對她不再規(guī)限于某類角色的舉動大加贊同。我真心祝愿她出演的角色更加犀利。在《重新開始》一片里，她飾演一名叫格里塔的鄉(xiāng)村歌手，懷著傷痛的過去，在紐約漂泊，幫助一位頹廢落魄的音樂制作人（由馬克·魯法洛飾演）從谷底反彈，走向輝煌。這部電影從編劇到導(dǎo)演都是約翰·卡尼操刀完成，就像是他2007年的一鳴驚人之作《曾經(jīng)》的翻版，只不過投資更大。《重新開始》沒有危難關(guān)頭，沒有煎熬隱忍。在《曾經(jīng)》里，盡管有輕浮的挑逗情節(jié)和吵鬧的錄音片段，但是主角們?yōu)樯?jì)糊口疲于奔命。相比之下，在《重新開始》里，故事情節(jié)發(fā)生在一系列獨(dú)特的曼哈頓城市景致間，他們大多在群山與小丘之間閑散地漫步、徘徊、打轉(zhuǎn)。

或許我們應(yīng)該來重溫一下過去這二三十年的一些事情吧——為了她也為了大家。她在西倫敦的郊區(qū)長大，雙親是劇作家，她四歲前就成名，有經(jīng)紀(jì)人管理。青少年時期，她就在《星球大戰(zhàn)前傳1：魅影危機(jī)》里小露臉，然后在《我愛貝克漢姆》里擔(dān)任主演，接著憑借《傲慢與偏見》的伊麗莎白·貝納特一角而獲得奧斯卡提名。她與約翰尼·德普搭檔出演《加勒比海盜》，在《贖罪》里經(jīng)受心靈煎熬，還成為了洗發(fā)產(chǎn)品以及香奈兒香水的代言人。但她在紅毯上的成就也讓她成為八卦雜志追逐的對象。她不得不否認(rèn)關(guān)于她得了厭食癥的流言，每當(dāng)她步行外出，就發(fā)現(xiàn)自己像受驚的羚羊一樣被跟蹤追逐。“我愛步行，”她哀嘆道，“我知道這聽起來不理智，但是我真的很愛步行，但有很長一段時間，我不能這樣做?！?/p>

她記得的事情可能比她愿意承認(rèn)的要多。她承認(rèn)，自己的成功來得有點(diǎn)太早?！拔覠o疑是在公眾眼皮底下修完自己所有的表演課的。而我也要為此臉皮變厚起來。沒錯，我本可以通過舒服的方式來學(xué)習(xí)——我可以到戲劇學(xué)院求學(xué)，然后犯無數(shù)錯誤。如果你能夠選擇成功到來的方式，那樣應(yīng)該會是我的選擇。但是當(dāng)然，你無法選擇。如果機(jī)會來了，你就必須把握住，因?yàn)樗苡锌赡懿粫俣冉蹬R。所以我抓住了機(jī)會，也深知這會很殘酷，因?yàn)槲抑雷约簩W(xué)到的還不夠多。我當(dāng)時根本不知道自己是要做什么的?！?/p>

而奈特利眼中的“戲劇學(xué)?！?，也就是一系列好萊塢大片以及高端大氣的古裝劇片場。她享受禮遇，接受奉承，她成名的起點(diǎn)非常高——好像奧運(yùn)會高臺滑雪的最高點(diǎn)一樣?；蛟S這樣可以解釋她似乎總?cè)莵淼慕z絲敵意。很少新星能像奈特利那樣讓觀眾的反響如此涇渭分明：“粉絲”對她的銀幕表現(xiàn)毫無保留地大加贊賞，而其他人把她視為青澀少女，不過在鏡中搔首弄姿罷了。

“批評很傷人，”她說道，“在學(xué)校的時候我是優(yōu)等生，而戲劇一直是我的強(qiáng)項(xiàng)。我在學(xué)校的戲劇表演中擔(dān)任重要角色，從中找到自我存在感。然后，忽然之間，大家說：‘不，你很爛。你根本不知道自己在做什么?！@對你如何看待自己以及如何看待自己喜愛的東西是一種奇怪的顛覆?！?/p>

在她人生二十五歲左右的那段日子里，大多數(shù)演員才剛剛開始自己的演藝生涯，她就有意識地慢慢遠(yuǎn)離鎂光燈，選擇小成本制作，找能自適之處安身。但是她似乎仍然不肯定自己該走多遠(yuǎn)。理智與情感之間發(fā)生博弈。“我大部分的工作還是在商業(yè)電影領(lǐng)域，還沒有往試驗(yàn)性很強(qiáng)的領(lǐng)域嘗試，盡管我真的很想這樣做。”

如果有其他電影能讓她感興趣，她要參與其中完全不是問題。她一人參演就足以讓那些意欲成名的小眾電影得到投資。奈特利做了個鬼臉，這樣的前景似乎讓她有所警惕。“是的，這樣能成，但是到時你又會考慮到票房的問題，”她解釋道，“你要有票房大熱的往績才能為那些小制作電影贏來投資，但長盛不衰是不可能的。所以你作為那些電影吸金保證的地位會急速下滑。這就是為什么你不得不小心謹(jǐn)慎地選片。這是我們行業(yè)的規(guī)則。”

我感覺這個話題可能最好還是留到某年某日再討論比較好。誰在乎奈特利是否不肯定自己的下一步怎么走？畢竟，她還年輕。她只是和自己賽跑而已。