Keira Knightley Says She Isn’t the Mother She Thought She’d Be

After the release of Hulu’s new thriller Boston Strangler, an untold true story about a notorious serial killer — her first project in two years — the queen of period films, Keira Knightley, proved to the world there’s nothing she cannot do. And in an interview with Vogue, Knightley said that motherhood had taught her lessons she would have never learned without her two daughters, Edie and Delilah, whom she shares with her husband James Righton.

Seven years into motherhood and many lessons along the way, Knightley is nowhere near where she thought she’d be as a mother. Quite literally the opposite.

“No, I am exactly not how I imagined myself to be as a mum,” she told the publication. “I thought I’d be a hell of a lot more hippy than I am. And I’m actually not hippy at all.”

Speaking of why that is, she said that raising her daughters has made her a disciplined parent — whom she naturally is not and her household is a product of routine.

“I’m not naturally a structured person, but my kids find structure really helpful,” she shared. “We’re quite a timetabled house, which is literally the opposite of my entire personality.”

During the interview, she was asked whether she was referring to her children as “straight-laced?” Her response was a blatant yes.

“I’m saying that they’re stopping me from having fun. [Laughs.] No, they’re fantastically strange," she said.

Last year, she told People about her love for hand-me-downs and her exciting plans to share the outfits she’s worn throughout her career with her two daughters.

"I've been working for Chanel for a very long time, and I'm very lucky that I've got some great Chanel pieces, so, at some point, I'm sure they can raid the wardrobe and get those," said Knightley.

While she’s looking forward to sharing her favorite designer pieces and the beauty advice she will pass down to them in the coming years, she hopes her daughters forge their own paths when it comes to self-expression.

"I really hope that they don't listen to me when they're teenagers and they pile [makeup] on their faces and they do completely extraordinary punk-like things, because that's the point of being a teenager," Knightley added.