James Corden hits it off with Keira Knightley as he goes from talent show winner to dodgy busker

TALENT show winner to dodgy busker may not sound like a great career trajectory, but at least James Corden got to hit it off with Keira Knightley.

JAMES Corden has a theory: “All actors want to be rock stars and all rock stars want to be actors.”

LONDON, ENGLAND - JULY 02: Actress Keira Knightley and Actor James Corden attend a photocall for "Begin Again" on July 2, 2014 in London, England. (Photo by Eamonn M. McCormack/Getty Images)

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The Brit speaks with some authority on the subject, having played a dodgy busker in Begin Again, the new film from writer-director of Once, John Carney.

Among Corden’s co-stars are CeeLo Green and Maroon 5’s Adam Levine.

Corden continues: “It’s probably true of every actor except Keira Knightley, who I don’t think has any ambitions to be a rock star, yet she might be the only one who could.”

Knightley leads Begin Again as a songwriter who starts over in New York after her boyfriend dumps her as soon as he gets a taste of stardom.

Mark Ruffalo plays the trainwreck music exec who hears Knightley sing and is convinced she’s his ticket back to respectability.

While Corden plays Knightley’s best mate in the film, the pair had never met in real life, despite having plenty of mutual friends in London.

Scene from Begin Again - Roadshow Films

“The thing I’m proud of most in the film is we hit it off so well that it really does look and feel like we’re old friends,” Corden says. “It looks like I’m making her laugh, but that’s Keira acting ... I’m not that funny.”

Corden is being too humble, of course. Funny is what he’s been known for since Gavin & Stacey — the series he created, wrote and starred in for the BBC — hit it big.

Lately, however, his output has taken on a musical bent, all by sheer coincidence: “I don’t quite know where all of this music has come from in my life, but I’m very thankful for it.”

Matthew Horne and Joanna Page, James Corden and Ruth Jones in ABC show Gavin and Stacey

Last year, he played rags-to-riches opera singer Paul Potts in film One Chance.

In January, he’ll be The Baker in fairytale mashup musical Into the Woods, with Meryl Streep and Emily Blunt.

He also chased a role — “I sent an email saying, ‘Can I be in the film, please?’” — in Kill Your Friends, an adaptation of John Niven’s cult novel set in the Britpop-era music industry.

Yet Corden is only really skirting around the edges of musicianship, which makes him the black sheep in his family.

“My dad was a musician, my grandad was a musician and my great-grandad and my dad’s brothers ... So there’s always been music around our family and I’ve always sung, but I never stuck with an instrument.

James Corden in Roadshow movie One Chance for Hit Pic. Supplied

“I do have regrets about that; you’ll never hear anyone say, ‘I wish I couldn’t play the piano’.”

Corden did write a song for his character in Begin Again, which he thought was great. The director’s reaction? “Oh it’s perfect — it’s terrible.”

To which Corden mumbled something like, “That’s what I was going for”, as his pop star dreams crumbled.

As he talks, Corden is driving to work on an hour-long special of his BBC crime caper series The Wrong Mans.

British actor and presenter James Corden attends the 2011 BAFTA (British Academy Film and Television) Television Awards at the Grosvenor House Hotel in central London on May 22, 2011. AFP PHOTO/CARL COURT

Later that afternoon, he’ll be whisked off to record narration for the BBC film adaptation of Roald Dahl’s Esio Trot, about a man with a thing for his neighbour, who only has eyes for her tortoise.

“There are some things where you take a bit of time to deliberate whether you want to be in them or not. Then there are things that take you about 3½ seconds,” Corden says of Esio Trot.

“When you get an email from Richard Curtis saying, ‘We’ve written a part for you and the other two lead roles are being played by Dustin Hoffman and Judi Dench’, you can’t reply with ‘Where do I have to be?’ soon enough!”

Hosts, Australian singer Kylie Minogue, right, and British actor James Corden perform at the Brit Awards 2009 at Earls Court exhibition centre in London, England, Feb. 18, 2009. (AP Photo/MJ Kim)

Corden, who has a three-year-old son, is equally busy on the home front: “My wife is getting bigger and in a few months’ time our family will get bigger. It’s hugely exciting.”

His family even extends out here, with relatives living in Melbourne. The 35-year-old had his own taste of the Aussie good life while performing play The History Boys in Sydney for six weeks back in 2006.

“If you’re single, with your mates and your job requires you to work for three hours in the evening, it’s a wonderful situation to be in,” Corden recalls with a laugh.

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Originally published as James Corden hits it off with Keira Knightley as he goes from talent show winner to dodgy busker