Keira Knightley is less self-conscious as an actress now she has children

She told Harper's Bazaar magazine: "There’s that sense of, like, I don’t give a f**k. Once you’ve had that whole experience of leaking breasts everywhere and the messiness of it - there's no control, it’s animalistic. I feel that in a funny way with acting it sort of helps; there is no embarrassment any more."

Meanwhile, Keira previously revealed she had a "mental breakdown" when she was 22.

She explained: "I did have a mental breakdown at 22, so I did take a year off there and was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder because of all that stuff. I went deep into therapy and all of that, and [a therapist] said, 'It's amazing - I normally come in here and have people that think people are talking about them and they think that they're being followed, but actually they're not. You're the first person that actually that is happening to!' I actually did hypnotherapy so that I could stand on the red carpet at the BAFTAs and not have a panic attack. The hypnotherapy worked because I did stand there and I didn't have a panic attack."

And the actress admitted the period following her early movie success such as 'Bend it Like Beckham' and 'Pirates of the Caribbean' was "insane" because although she was doing very well in her career, she only paid attention to the negative comments.

She said: "That run of films was completely insane. It's amazing looking back at it from the outside -- you're like, 'Whoa, that was hit after hit after hit!'

"But, from the inside, all you're hearing is the criticism, really ...

It was still very confusing, because you're getting all these nominations for all of these things, but press-wise, when I'm going into interviews, people are still saying, 'Everybody thinks you're s**t,' or focusing on your looks, or focusing on what's wrong with you. And, again, I was [20] you can only hear the negative stuff."