Director Richard Curtis has recalled how Keira Knightley once worried Pirates Of The Caribbean would be "a disaster".

In an op-ed for the Radio Times magazine on Friday (24Mar17), Curtis shared that the actress still wasn't sold on the idea of the pirate franchise after she had finished working on his 2003 romantic comedy Love Actually.

"When we shot the film, I remember Keira Knightley saying that her next project was 'some pirate thing - probably a disaster,'" he revealed.

He also made a similar comment in a behind-the-scenes video for Red Nose Day Actually, a sequel to Love Actually, which aired on Friday night in the U.K. as part of Comic Relief's Red Nose Day fundraising telethon.

However, Keira's assumption turned out to be wrong, as playing aristocrat Elizabeth Swann in the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise opposite Johnny Depp and Orlando Bloom catapulted her to international superstardom.

And, the 31-year-old wasn't the only Love Actually cast member to star in the saga.

"Bill Nighy was also later a be-tentacled Davy Jones in 2006's Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest and 2007's Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End," Richard noted.

The filmmaker also mentioned that Andrew Lincoln, whose character famously professed his unrequited love with cue cards to Keira's newlywed character in Love Actually, "had never come across, let alone killed, the Walking Dead."

And Chiwetel Ejiofor, who went on to earn an Oscar nod for 12 Years a Slave in 2014 "hadn't been a slave for five minutes, let alone 12 years".

"I know the film is very much not everyone's cup of tea, but I've been surprised ever since it came out, and so grateful, that some people are really fond of it," he said about the hit movie. "So I hope that a lot of you will turn on to BBC1 on Red Nose Day to see the mini-sequel and maybe find it in your hearts to give a bit of cash to save and change a lot of lives, at home and abroad."

The fundraising telethon raised a huge $88 million on Friday.