Keira Knightley: The daughter of actor Will Knightley and playwright Sharman Macdonald. After she requested an agent at the age of three, her parents allowed her to work on productions in her summer holidays. Her first role was at the age of 9, in Moira Armstrong's A Village Affair (1994). However, Knightley's first high profile role came in 1999, as Sabe, Decoy Queen to Natalie Portman's Queen Amidala in Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999). Since then she has completed an impressive array of films including The Hole (2001), but is probably best known for her role of tomboy footballer Jules Paxton in Gurinder Chadha's Bend It Like Beckham (2002).
Mini Biography
Keira Christina Knightley was born in the South London suburb of Richmond on March 26th 1985. She is the daughter of actor Will Knightley and actress turned playwright Sharman Macdonald. An older brother, Caleb, was born in 1979. Brought up immersed in the acting profession from both sides - writing and performing - it is little wonder that the young Keira asked for her own agent at the age of three. She was granted one at the age of six and performed in her first TV role as Little Girl in "Screen One: Royal Celebration (#5.4)" (1993), aged seven. It was discovered at an early age that Keira had severe difficulties in reading and writing. She was not officially dyslexic as she never sat the formal tests required of the British Dyslexia Association. Instead she worked incredibly hard, encouraged by her family, until the problem had been overcome by her early teens.
Her first multi-scene performance came in A Village Affair (1994), an adaptation of the lesbian love story by Joanna Trollope. This was followed by small parts in British crime series "The Bill" (1984), an exiled German princess in The Treasure Seekers (1996) (TV) and a much more substantial role as the young Judith Dunbar in Giles Foster's adaptation of Rosamunde Pilcher's novel Coming Home (1998) (TV), alongside Peter O'Toole, Penelope Keith and Joanna Lumley. The first time Keira's name was mentioned around the world was when it was revealed (in a plot twist kept secret by director George Lucas) that she played Natalie Portman's decoy Padme to Portman's Amidala in Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999).
It was several years before agreement was reached over which scenes featured Keira as the queen and which Natalie! Keira had no formal training as an actress and did it out of pure enjoyment. She went to an ordinary council-run school in nearby Teddington and had no idea what she wanted to do when she left. By now she was beginning to receive far more substantial roles and was starting to turn work down as one project and her schoolwork was enough to contend with. She reappeared on British television in 1999 as Rose Fleming in Alan Bleasdale's faithful reworking of Charles Dickens' "Oliver Twist" (1999) (mini), and travelled to Romania to film her first title role in Disney's Princess of Thieves (2001) (TV) in which she played Robin Hood's daughter Gwyn.
Keira's first serious boyfriend was her Thieves co-star Del Synnott, and they later co-starred in Peter Hewitt's 'work of fart' Thunderpants (2002). Nick Hamm's dark thriller The Hole (2001) kept her busy during 2000, and featured her first nude scene (15 at the time, the film was not released until she was 16 years old).
In the summer of 2001, while Keira studied and sat her final school exams (she received six As) she filmed a movie about an Asian girl's (Parminder Nagra) love for football and the prejudices she has to overcome regarding both her culture and her religion.) Bend It Like Beckham (2002) was a smash hit in football-mad Britain but it had to wait until another of Keira's films propelled it to the top end of the US box office. Bend It cost just £3.5m to make, and nearly £1m of that came from the British Lottery. It took £11m in the UK and has since gone on to score more than US$76m worldwide. Meanwhile, Keira had started A-levels at Esher College, studying Classics, English Literature and Political History, but continued to take acting roles which she thought would widen her experience as an actress. The story of a drug-addicted waitress and her friendship with the young son of a drug-addict, Pure (2002), occupied Keira from January to March 2002. Also at this time, Keira's first attempt at Shakespeare was filmed. She played Helena in a modern interpretation of a scene from A Midsummer Night's Dream entitled The Seasons Alter (2002). This was commissioned by environmental organisation Futerra, of which Keira's mother is patron. Keira received no fee for this performance, or for another short film, New Year's Eve (2002), by award-winning director Colin Spector.
But it was a chance encounter with producer Andy Harries at the London premiere of Bridget Jones's Diary (2001) which forced Keira to leave her studies and pursue acting full-time. The meeting lead to an audition for the role of Larisa Feodorovna Guishar - the classic heroine of Boris Pasternak' 's novel _"Doctor Zhivago" (2002) (mini)_, played famously in the David Lean movie by Julie Christie. This was to be a big-budget TV movie with a screenplay written by Andrew Davies. Keira won the part and the mini-series was filmed throughout the Spring of 2002 in Slovakia, co-starring Sam Neill and Hans Matheson as Yuri Zhivago. Keira rounded off 2002 with a few scenes in the first movie to be directed by Blackadder and Vicar of Dibley writer Richard Curtis. Called Love Actually (2003), Keira played Juliet, a newlywed whose husband's Best Man is secretly besotted with her.
A movie filmed after Love Actually but released before it was to make the world sit up and take notice of this beautiful fresh-faced young actress with a cute British accent. It was a movie which Keira very nearly missed out on altogether. Auditions were held in London for a new blockbuster movie called Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003), but heavy traffic in the city forced Keira to be tagged on to the end of the day's auditions list. It helped - she got the part. Filming took place in Los Angeles and the Caribbean from October 2002 to March 2003 and was released to massive box office success and almost universal acclaim in the July of that year. Meanwhile, a small British film called Bend It Like Beckham (2002) had sneaked onto a North American release slate and was hardly setting the box office alight. But Keira's dominance in Pirates had set tongues wagging and questions being asked about the actress playing Elizabeth Swann. Almost too late, Bend It's distributors realised one of its two stars was the same girl whose name was on everyone's lips due to Pirates, and took the unusual step of re-releasing Bend It to 1,000 screens across the US, catapulting it from no. 26 back up to no. 12. Pirates, meanwhile, was fighting off all contenders at the top spot, and stayed in the Top 3 for an incredible 21 weeks.
It was perhaps no surprise, then, that Keira was on producer Jerry Bruckheimer's wanted list for the part of Guinevere in a planned accurate telling of the legend of King Arthur. Filming took place in Ireland and Wales from June to November 2003. In July Keira had become celebrity face of British jeweller and luxury goods retailer Asprey.
At a photoshoot for the company on Long island New York in August Keira met and fell in love with Northern Irish model Jamie Dornan. King Arthur (2004) was released in July 2004 to lukewarm reviews. It seems audiences wanted the legend after all, and not necessarily the truth. Keira became the breakout star and 'one to watch in 2004' throughout the world's media at the end of 2003.
Keira's 2004 started off in Scotland and Canada filming John Maybury's time-travelling thriller The Jacket (2005) with Oscar-winner Adrien Brody. A planned movie of Deborah Moggach's novel, Tulip Fever, about forbidden love in 17th Century Amsterdam, was cancelled in February after the British government suddenly closed tax loopholes which allowed filmmakers to claw back a large proportion of their expenditure. Due to star Keira and Jude Law in the main roles, the film remains mothballed. Instead, Keira spent her time wisely, visiting Ethiopia on behalf of the Comic Relief charity, and spending summer at various grandiose locations around the UK filming what promises to be a faithful adaptation of Jane Austen's classic novel Pride & Prejudice (2005), alongside Matthew Macfadyen as Mr. Darcy, and with Donald Sutherland and Judi Dench in supporting roles.
In October 2004, Keira received her first major accolade, the Hollywood Film Award for Best Breakthrough Actor - Female. The remainder of 2004 saw Keira once again trying a completely new genre, this time the part-fact, part-fiction life story of model turned bounty hunter Domino (2005). Her pre-contracted sequel clause from the original Pirates movie meant the production of not one, but two sequels were already in the works. Pre-production started in February, and Keira started filming - again in Los Angeles and the Caribbean - from mid-March onwards. Filming is expected to wrap in January of 2006 with Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006) due for a Summer 2006 release and Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (2007) for Summer 2007.
Trivia
Daughter of actor Will Knightley.
Member of the Heathham House Youth Project.
Younger sister of Caleb Knightley
Trained in dancing.
The similarity between Knightley and Natalie Portman meant that during the filming of Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999), their own mothers could not tell them apart once in makeup.
Her role as the decoy queen in Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999) was kept secret in order to not spoil the surprise, it was maintained through the promotions that Portman played both the Queen and the decoy.
Supports West Ham United
Mother is actress-turned-author Sharman Macdonald, who wrote 'When I Was A Girl I Used To Scream And Shout' and 'The Winter Guest'.
Tatler announced that Keira is the most desirable single woman in the UK (2004).
Has dyslexia. She had to wear special glasses in adolescence to help her read.
The most glamorous film actress chosen by magazine Glamour (2004)
The Royal Shakespeare Company of Stratford, England, held a 2004 poll asking movie viewers to vote for the actor and actress they would love to see play Romeo and Juliet, and the winners were Knightley and James Marsters. More than 2,000 people voted for more than 150 different actors for both roles. Keira triumphed over Kate Winslet, Nicole Kidman, Scarlett Johansson, and Juliet Landau in the vote. Knightley said, "I am absolutely thrilled to have come top of the poll, particularly as Juliet is a role I would very much love to play in the future." (April 23, 2004)
Voted #1 in New Woman magazine's 50 Most Beautiful Celebs 2004.
Was born on same day as poet Robert Frost.
Shares birthday with playwright Tennessee Williams.
Voted The Sexiest Film Star of All Time by Empire magazine poll. [September 2004]
She did her first topless scene at the age of 15, in The Hole (2001), whilst the film was released in 2001 it was filmed in 2000. For legal reasons due to her age her mother had to agree and the set was closed.
Auditioned for, and was accepted to the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA) in London, England.
At 16, she went to Esher College to study for her A Levels, but quit the course when offered the role of Lara in Doctor Zhivago (2002) (TV).
Voted #18 in FHM 100 Sexiest Women 2005
Credits her dark looks to her mother's Black Scottish heritage, who were descendants of the Spanish Armada
She's an idol in several forum communities from Heavengames.com, one of the most famous websites about Real Time Strategy computer games.
When auditioning for the role of Jackie Price in The Jacket (2005), she had suffered food poisoning a few days earlier. She decided to audition anyway and the film makers liked her "acting" for the scene, as Jackie Price was to be a woman with many issues of loss and pain as well as being physically sick in general.
She has bought a flat in Richmond Upon Thames (2005) but has said to have only have spent a few weeks there. However, she plans to fill it with her own painted canvases.
Voted second sexiest voice, behind Sir Sean Connery, in a poll by the UK's Royal National Institute for the Blind, commissioned to celebrate 70 years of their Talking Books service.
Named #53 on the Maxim magazine Hot 100 of 2005 list.
The Daily Mirror named her "Actress of the Year" in December 2005.
At age 20, she was the third-youngest woman in Oscar history to be nominated for Best Actress.
As of February 2006, says she plans on remaining living in London and will not move to Los Angeles to further her career in American films.
Friend of Sienna Miller.
Loves to collect shoes
Friend of the Italian actor Andrea Logiudice
Was considered for the role of Kate Meer in Neil James's "Ghost Seeker: Genesis" in 2006. Both Lindy King (Knightley's agent) and Knightley herself liked the script, but the shooting schedule of Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (2007) meant that the project had to move on without her.
Her hero is her cast mate in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003), Geoffrey Rush.
Named #11 in FHM's "100 Sexiest Women in the World 2005" special supplement. (2005)
Named #9 on MAXIM magazines "Hot 100" list of 2006
Employed a stylist to dress her for premieres and award ceremonies. The stylist also dresses Lindsay Lohan and Nicole Kidman.
Attended an engagement party for Jennifer Lopez and Chris Judd.
Trained four days a week for three months in preparation for King Arthur (2004). She did about two hours of weight lifting, and then three hours either boxing, fighting, or horseback riding. - Cosmopolitan, August 2004.
Said auditioning for the role of Christine in The Phantom of the Opera (2004) was the singularly most embarrassing moment of her life because "I knew I couldn't sing it." The role eventually went to trained opera singer Emmy Rossum. - Marie Claire 2005.
Told NewWoman in 2004 that for King Arthur (2004), she endured an amazing seventh-month training session.
She has a personal trainer. - Tatler 2005
Took elocution lessons at the beginning of her career.
Invited to join AMPAS in 2006.
She attended a pre-Emmy party where she purchased a $7,500 pair of earrings.
Her 21st birthday party cost more than $30,000. Actors, designers, and other industry types attended.
Named #5 in FHM magazine's "100 Sexiest Women in the World 2006" supplement. (2006).
Ranked #20 on the Maxim magazine Hot 100 of 2007 list.
Named Most Beautiful Woman and Most Beautiful Face by Independent Critics (indiecritics.com).
Her first name means 'dark'.
Made her debut on the Forbes 100 Most Powerful Celebrities in June, 2007. She came in a #71 beating out other high profile actresses like Scarlett Johansson and Reese Witherspoon.
Voted #15 in the AfterEllen Hot 100, a list of the hottest women in entertainment as voted by lesbian and bisexual women (June 2007).
Was considered for the role of Ann in Evening (2007), but wasn't able to do it due to schedule conflicts.
In January 2007, the Daily Mail newspaper published an article about a girl who had died from anorexia which falsely suggested that Keira was also anorexic and showed a photograph of her in a bikini alongside an emotive quote from the girl's mother "If pictures like this one of Keira carried a health warning, my darling daughter might have lived". Keira successfully sued the Mail for libel.

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