Keira Christina Knightley biography
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Keira Christina Knightley filmography

[h3]Keira Christina Knightley was actually christened as Kiera, and was born in Teddington, a quiet suburb of south-west London. She has one brother, Caleb, who is five years older than her. Keira’s Scottish-born mother, Sharman MacDonald, had formerly worked as a stage and TV actress, appearing in the popular detective series, Shoestring. [/h3]

After Keira’s mother gave up acting, she went on to pursue a successful career as a playwright. Keira‘s father was Will Knightley, who was also a stage and TV actor. With such a theatrical background, it was hardly surprising that young Keira should grow up wanting to act. Much to her parents’ amazement, she asked them to find her an agent at the tender age of three! Apparently, she’d already noted that her parents received frequent calls from their agents, asking them to appear in plays and TV shows, and so she’d already decided that she needed an agent herself! Keira’s mother refused, but her daughter persisted, and eventually, when she was just six years old, she got her own way.

As luck would have it, Keira’s first agent succeeded in finding acting work for her, and Keira made her TV debut at the age of seven, playing the part of a little girl in a film called Royal Celebration, a drama set against the background of the marriage of Diana Spencer and Prince Charles. Two years later, in 1994, she was given a small part in another drama called A Village Affair, starring Sophie Ward and Kerry Fox. But while Keira’s acting career was already taking off, she was not doing quite as well at school as her parents might have wished.

Right from the start, Keira had serious problems mastering reading and writing, since she was dyslexic - but her condition wasn’t diagnosed properly until much later on. She was frequently teased at school for being “stupid”, since her condition meant that she couldn’t read properly, and wrote numbers the wrong way round. Acting, however, was a constant source of solace and consolation for young Keira. In 1995, she acted in a wartime drama called Innocent Lies, swiftly followed by playing the role of The Princess in E. Nesbit’s The Treasure Seekers, alongside James Wilby, Ian Richardson and Gina McKee.

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Keira went to nearby Teddington School, and although she wasn’t a star student, she reveled in the great facilities the school had to offer. She spent a lot of time hanging out at Heatham House youth club nearby, a social venue for young people where local artists, musicians and youth workers introduced Keira and her friends to the delights of photography, football, DJ-ing, skateboarding and acting. Despite her hectic schedule and her early learning difficulties, Keira succeeded in passing 6 GCSEs.

In 1998 she played the role of a quiet schoolgirl in the TV dramatization of Rosamund Pilcher’s romantic novel, Coming Home. But whilst still at school, she received an amazing offer from Hollywood. [urlnew=http://www.thebiographychannel.co.uk/biography_home/12:0/George_Lucas.htm]George Lucas[/urlnew] was in the process of casting The Phantom Menace, the first part of the Star Wars epic saga, and Keira was chosen to play the role of handmaiden to Queen Amidala (played by [urlnew=http://www.thebiographychannel.co.uk/biography_home/1897:0/Natalie_Portman.htm]Natalie Portman[/urlnew]). The storyline required Keira to impersonate the queen, and to wear the same clothes as her, so her presence in the film was kept completely secret - with the result that this breakthrough movie role didn’t do as much to enhance Keira’s career as might have been expected. Around the same time, she acted in the role of Oliver’s aunt in Alan Bleasdale‘s adaptation of Oliver Twist.

Keira’s next major movie role, however, set her firmly on course for the big time. She was offered the role of Juliette Paxton in Bend It Like [urlnew=http://www.thebiographychannel.co.uk/biography_home/2026:0/David_Beckham.htm]Beckham[/urlnew], and gave a performance that won her Best Newcomer Award at the London Critics Circle in 2003. The film told the story of a football-made tomboyish teenager and her friendship with an Asian girl. The film was an overnight smash in football-crazy Britain. It was a huge box-office earner too, since it cost only £3.5 million to make, but took over £11 million in Great Britain alone, and has since gone on to generate over US $76 million worldwide. Unfazed by her growing success, Keira enrolled for her A level studies at Esher College in Surrey, choosing Classics, English Literature and Political History as her subjects.

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Keira’s academic ambitions were soon to be sidelined by better and better acting offers. A chance meeting with producer Andy Harries at the London premiere of Bridget Jones’s Diary led to an audition for the lead role of Larisa Feodorovna Giushar , the heroine of an upcoming TV version of Boris Pasternak’s classic novel, Doctor Zhivago. This big-budget production looked certain to be highly prestigious and Keira was delighted to land such a plum role. Keira’s co-stars included Sam Neill and Hans Matheson, and she‘d be treading in the footsteps of the screen legend Julie Christie, who‘d immortalized the role in David Lean‘s classic 1960s version. Filming was scheduled to take place in Slovakia, and going on location was Keira’s first real taste of independence. She had her own flat in Prague’s red light district, with a bird’s eye view of the local prostitutes and sleazy video stores!

On returning to London, Keira made three short films, but then it was full speed ahead for her biggest year to date. She took a chance and decided to attend the London auditions for a new blockbuster movie, called Pirates of The Caribbean, but got stuck in a traffic jam, and nearly didn’t make it in time! Working alongside screen idols [urlnew=http://www.thebiographychannel.co.uk/biography_home/519:0/Johnny_Depp.htm]Johnny Depp[/urlnew] and Orlando Bloom, as well as Oscar-winning actor Geoffrey Rush, Keira was to play the part of Elizabeth Swann the daughter of the British governor, who’s kidnapped by ghostly pirates in search of long-lost treasure! This time, Keira got to go on location in Los Angeles and the Caribbean, and it was hardly a surprise that the film turned out to be a major smash hit. The box-office returns were phenomenally high, quickly exceeding $200 million. Meanwhile, Bend It Like Beckham had sneaked on to the American film distributors’ lists, and quickly made its way up the ratings charts in the US. When Hollywood producers realised it was the same young British actress playing the lead part in the two hottest films of the moment, Keira suddenly became one of the hottest actresses around. Keira, who had just had her 18th birthday, had most definitely arrived.

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Back in England, Keira was cast in the rom-com movie, Love Actually, which told the story of ten parallel love affairs, continually crossing paths with each other. The film had a star-studded cast that included [urlnew=http://www.thebiographychannel.co.uk/biography_home/559:0/Hugh_Grant.htm]Hugh Grant[/urlnew], Emma Thompson, Alan Rickman and Liam Neeson, to name but a few, and Keira claims she was continually star-struck during shooting.

Next, she was due to take the lead in Tulip Fever, based on Deborah Moggach’s best-selling novel of the same name, but filming was cancelled at the last minute, owing to a closing of a tax loophole that had been set to finance the film’s production in Amsterdam. Instead, Keira changed pace and acted in a Steven Soderbergh movie, The Jacket, co-starring with Adrien Brody (of Oscar-winning Pianist fame).

More costume drama followed, as Keira was picked for the much-coveted role of Elizabeth Bennett in a new cinema version of Jane Austen’s 18th-century novel, Pride and Prejudice: the male lead of Mr Darcy was played by British actor Matthew MacFadyen, with [urlnew=http://www.thebiographychannel.co.uk/biography_home/513:0/Donald_Sutherland.htm]Donald Sutherland[/urlnew], Brenda Blethyn and Judi Dench in supporting roles. Surprisingly for such a thoroughly British production, Pride and Prejudice was hugely successful in the United States, and Keira wound up being nominated for both an Oscar and a Golden Globe. Keira achieved real recognition in the United States when she received the Hollywood Film Award for Best Breakthrough Actor - Female, in October 2004.

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Next, it was back to Hollywood and the Caribbean, as Keira worked on two sequels to “Pirates” back-to-back. The second movie, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest was released in 2006, and the third film, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End came out in the summer of 2007. Changing pace yet again, Keira then starred in stylish thriller that mixed fact and fiction called Domino, where she played the part of Domino Harvey, a beautiful model who gives up her career to become a bounty hunter.

Keira’s most recent success has been in “Atonement”, based on the novel by Ian McEwan, where she co-starred with British heart-throb James MacAvoy. It‘s been rumoured that her brilliant performance could put in the line-up for another Oscar nomination. The movie was directed by Joe Wright, who also directed Pride and Prejudice. 2008 sees her appearing in yet another costume drama: in the movie, [urlnew=/entertainment_news/232/_The_Duchess_Film_Review.htm]The Duchess[/urlnew], she plays the part of Georgiana, the Duchess of Devonshire.

Keira resolutely refuses to discuss her private life in TV and press interviews, but it seems as though she’s already enjoyed her fair share of romance off-screen. Her first real boyfriend was her co-star in Princess of Thieves, Del Synott, with whom she also co-starred in the movie Thunderpants. Whilst on a photo shoot for the jewelry company Asprey in New York, she met and fell in love with Northern Irish model, Jamie Dornan. But that romance has now ended, and she’s since begun dating fellow actor Rupert Friend.

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[i]Jane Bowles[/i]
Keira Christina Knightley biography



- Her first name means “dark”.

- Is a friend of Sienna Miller.

- Loves to collect shoes.

- Was ranked no. 71 on the Forbes 100 Most Powerful Celebrities in June 2007.

- Was named Most Beautiful Woman and Most Beautiful Face by Independent Critics.

- She threw a 21st birthday party that cost over $30,000.

- She attended a pre-Emmy party where she purchased a pair of earrings that cost $7,500.

- Ranked no. 20 on the Maxim magazine Hot 100 of 2007 List.

- Is a keen amateur artist and painter.

- Shares a birthday with playwright Tennessee Williams.

- Supports West Ham United football team.

- Was described as “the most desirable woman in Britain” by Tatler magazine.

- The Daily Mirror named her Actress of The Year in 2005.

- She is the 3rd youngest woman ever to be nominated for the Oscar for Best Actress.

- Was voted the second sexiest voice in a poll taken by the UK’s Royal National Institute for the Blind - Sean Connery was voted no. 1!
Keira Christina Knightley biography



Royal Celebration (1993)

A Village Affair (1994)

Innocent Lies (1995)

The Treasure Seekers (1996)

Coming Home (TV) (1998)

Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace (1999)

Oliver Twist (1999)

Deflation (2001)

Princess of Thieves (2001)

The Hole (2001)

Bend It Like Beckham (2002)

Thunderpants (2002)

New Year’s Eve (2002)

Dr. Zhivago (TV) (2002)

The Seasons Alter (2002)

Pirates Of The Caribbean: The Curse of The Black Pearl (2003)

Love Actually (2003)

King Arthur (2004)

The Jacket (2005)

Pride and Prejudice (2005)

Domino (2005)

Stories of Lost Souls (2006)

Pirates of The Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest (2006)

Pirates of The Caribbean: At World’s End (2007)

Atonement (2007)

The Edge of Love (2008)

The Duchess (2008)
Keira Christina Knightley biography

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