Keira Knightly says she felt “stuck” after taking the role of Elizabeth Swann in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Black Pearl at the age of 17.

She told Harper’s Bazaar UK, “[Swann] was the object of everybody’s lust.” Not that she doesn’t have a lot of fight in her. But it was interesting coming from being really tomboyish to getting projected as quite the opposite. I felt very constrained. I felt very stuck.”

The Love Actually star added that she spent the next several years trying to “break out of that.” She added, “It very much felt like I was caged in a thing I didn’t understand.”