EXCLUSIVE: Keira Knightley On 'Nearly Killing' Steve Carell

Keira Knightley, the star of such comparatively low-tech films as Pride and Prejudice and Atonement, probably isn't the first name to spring to mind when you think of dangerous stuntwork. But in her new film, Seeking A Friend For The End Of The World, Knightley found out the hard way that being an actress — even a proper, Oscar-nominated one — can bring along its fair share of collateral damage.

Knightley explained how, in one scene that required her to drive a tiny car through an apocalyptic mob, she nearly sent co-star Steve Carell hurtling toward his own end of the world. "Actually, I’m a good driver, right, but I don’t have a car in London, so I don’t drive that much, and I’ve never really driven in film before, so I had never experienced the whole driving and acting at the same time," Knightley said in our exclusive interview. She went on: "So acting, driving badly in a riot, really just turned into me actually driving really badly and nearly killing Steve, by slamming my foot on the break."

And apparently it wasn't just Carell who had to survive Knightley's bad driving. "[Carell] was in the back and he launched himself straight forward into the cameraman, and I think if the cameraman can have children after that it would be like a really great thing," she said, adding: "Luckily nobody was killed, but I think everybody was like, 'OK, I think we’re done now.'”

Watch the full interview with Keira Knightley here: