I know what you’re thinking. Who the f-ck is John Carney? Not to be confused with Reeve Carney, who played Spiderman on Broadway and directed and starred in Taylor Swift’s “I Knew You Were Trouble.”

No, my friends, what we’re dealing with here is a poor, misunderstood artist. A struggling auteur, if you will.

You see, he wrote and directed a movie a while back called Begin Again, which, like me, I’m sure you heard about but didn’t bother watching. You may also remember it under its original title Can A Song Save Your Life?, which is the derpiest name on the planet. Here’s the Cliff’s Notes version according to Wikipedia: A struggling musician (Keira Knightley) fresh out of a breakup with her singer boyfriend (Adam Levine, who may or may not be playing himself) meets a former record exec (Mark Ruffalo) down on his luck. They begin recording an album together and fall in love along the way. Meanwhile, the struggling musician’s ex (Adam Levine) finds commercial success performing a song she wrote for him and she accuses him of selling out. Long story short, Knightley and Ruffalo find happiness selling their album for one dollar.

Why if that’s not the most Urban Outfitters love story I’ve ever heard of. And a younger woman falling for an older man? Groundbreaking!

Shockingly, Begin Again didn’t do spectacularly at the box office. But that shouldn’t bother Carney because he doesn’t care about The Man, right?

While promoting his new film (DON’T CALL IT A MOVIE, THAT’S MAINSTREAM, OKAY?) Sing Street, Carney had some choice words for Knightley. Like the classy guy he is, he told The Independent, “I learned that I'll never make a film with supermodels again.” He continued:

I think that that's what you need as an actor; you need to not be afraid to find out who you really are when the camera's rolling. Keira's thing is to hide who you are and I don't think you can be an actor and do that… So it's not like I hate the Hollywood thing but I like to work with curious, proper film actors as opposed to movie stars. I don't want to rubbish Keira, but you know it's hard being a film actor and it requires a certain level of honesty and self-analysis that I don't think she's ready for yet and I certainly don't think she was ready for on that film.

Sorry, Keira, just because you were nominated twice for an Oscar doesn’t mean you’re ready to work with visionaries like John Carney.

I didn't enjoy that experience of paparazzi and fabulous openings. The movie-star world is not something that ever appealed to me. I like working with actors and I wanted to come back to what I knew and enjoy filmmaking again — not that I didn't enjoy Begin Again, but Keira has an entourage that follow her everywhere so it's very hard to get any real work done, and so I was very ready to come back to Ireland and make films that nobody cared about who was in it or any of that crap.

But don’t worry, Knightley’s ineptitude didn’t completely soil Carney’s experience.

He called Ruffalo a “fantastic actor” and Levine “a joy to work with and actually quite unpretentious and not a bit scared of exposing himself on camera and exploring who he is as an individual.” Levine apparently declined to be paid for his role in the film.

When asked about Sing Street’s positive reviews, Carney said, “It's fantastic. I'm very surprised; it's a small personal movie with no Keira Knightleys in it. It's really rewarding.”

(Aside: I love this dress on Knightley and it also reminds me of the three-breasted woman from American Horror Story: Freak Show.)

Image credit: WENN

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