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Early Life

Keira Christina Knightley was born March 26^th 1985 in Teddington, Greater London, England. Her English father, Will Knightley, is a theatre and television actor and her Scottish mother, Sharman Macdonald, is an award-winning playwright. She has an elder brother, Caleb, who was born in 1979. Knightley lived most of her early life in Richmond, London, attending Teddington School and Esher College. She later attended the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art.

Knightley showed a interest in acting from a very early age and at the age of six her mother signed her to a local talent agent. She performed in a number of local amateur productions as a child including After Juliet, which was written by her mother. Knightley appeared in several U.K. television shows in the mid to late 1990s most notably The Bill and a adaptation of English romance author Joanna Trollope’s A Village Affair.

Knightley’s first significant film appearance came in Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace (1999), in which she played Sabe, the 'decoy' for Queen Amidala, played by Natalie Portman. Keira spent the next few years working on British made-for-television films before her big breakthrough in the football themed movie, Bend It Like Beckham, which was a huge success, grossing $18 million in the U.K. and $32 million in the U.S following its 2003 release.

Following this success she was cast in Jerry Bruckheimer's 2003 big budget action film, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl. Starring as Elizabeth Swann alongside Johnny Depp and compatriot Orlando Bloom the film grossed approximately $47 million in its U.S. opening weekend, before grossing $305 million domestically in a worldwide total of approximately $654 million, becoming the fourth highest grossing film of 2003. Later that year Knightley appeared as Juliet in the Golden Globe nominated British romantic comedy Love Actually.

In 2005 Knightly received huge critical acclaim for her portrayal of Elizabeth Bennet in the film version of Jane Austen’s classic Pride and Prejudice opposite Matthew Macfadyen. Pride and Prejudice garnered a number of nominations in the 2005/2006 film awards season, notably four nominations at the Academy Awards including a Best Actress in a Leading Role for Knightley.

2006 and 2007 saw Knightly reprise her role as Elizabeth Swann in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest and Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End respectively. The two films were shot simultaneously during 2005 and 2006 and would go on to be the biggest financial hits of her career thus far. Altogether, the series has grossed over $2.79 billion worldwide. In September 2008, Johnny Depp signed for a new movie in the franchise, expected to be released in 2012. As yet Knightly has not confirmed her involvement.

2007 also saw the release of the films Silk, an adaptation of the novel by Alessandro Baricco, and Atonement, a feature film adaptation of Ian McEwan's novel of the same name. The latter co-starring James McAvoy, Vanessa Redgrave, and Brenda Blethyn earned Knightly a Empire Award for Best Actress as well as Golden Globe and BAFTA Award nominations.

In 2008 Keira was cast in the lead role in The Duchess a British costume drama film based on Amanda Foreman's best-selling biography of the scandalous, 18th-century English aristocrat Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire.

1999 - Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace - Sabé

2001 - The Hole - Frances 'Frankie' Almond Smith

2002 - Bend It Like Beckham - Juliette Paxton

2003 - Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl - Elizabeth Swann

2003 - Love Actually - Juliet

2004 - King Arthur - Guinevere

2005 - The Jacket - Jackie

2005 - Domino - Domino Harvey

2005 - Pride and Prejudice - Elizabeth Bennet

2006 - Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest - Elizabeth Swann

2007 - Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End - Elizabeth Turner

2007 - Silk - Hélène Joncour

2007 - Atonement - Cecilia Tallis

2008 - The Edge of Love - Vera Phillips

2008 - The Duchess - Georgiana Cavendish

Trivia

• In 2008, Forbes reported Keira Knightley to be the second highest paid actress in Hollywood (behind Cameron Diaz), having earned $32 million the previous year.
• Knightley is a supporter of English Premier League side West Ham United.
• Voted #1 in New Woman magazine's 50 Most Beautiful Celebs 2004.
• At age 20, she was the third-youngest woman in Oscar history to be nominated for the Best Actress award.
• The similarity between Knightley and Natalie Portman allegedly meant that during the filming of Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace their own mothers could not tell them apart once in makeup.
• She was voted to have the second sexiest voice, behind Sir Sean Connery, in a poll by the UK's Royal National Institute for the Blind in 2005.
• She received six A's at school despite suffering from dyslexia.

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