Keira Knightley on Why It Took Three Offers Before She Felt Ready for Therese Raquin

Keira Knightley is making her Broadway debut in Thérèse Raquin, which officially opens at Studio 54 on October 29. All it took for her to take on the title role were two previous offers.

In a recent interview with the New York Times, the Oscar nominee revealed that she had been asked to perform in the play twice before, but until now, she didn’t feel ready. “When it came back to me the third time,” Knightley said, “I thought, ‘Well this is weird.’ I’ am still frightened of it, and I don’t know how to do it and there are so many problems with putting it on. But I was sort of up for the challenge.”

The third opportunity to play the role also almost didn't happen. Knightley welcomed her daughter Edie with husband James Righton earlier this year, but she signed on to the Roundabout production before learning she was pregnant. Though she initially considered withdrawing, she was urged by several loved ones to continue with the play: “My mother and various other very strong feminists around me went, ‘How could you say that? Of course you don’t back out….of course you do it all.’”

Knightley is digging deep in exploring Thérèse’s challenges and limitations: “I get very interested with people who are caged in some way, and I think it’s quite true that very often people who try to break out of their perceived cage do get punished for it.” But to the actress, theater is almost an escape from such a cage: “It’s not like film, which is stuck there forever…tomorrow will be completely different. And I find that incredibly romantic.”

You can catch Knightley, alongside Tony winners Judith Light and Gabriel Ebert, Matt Ryan and more, in Thérèse Raquin, directed by Evan Cabnet, at Studio 54 through January 3, 2016.