"A Young, Passionate Actress"

KEIRA KNIGHTLY

Keira Christina Knightly is among today’s most recognized British actresses around the globe. She was born on March 26th 1985 in Teddington, Greater London, England. Her parents, Will Knightley and Sharman MacDonald were also actors; but they never encouraged Keira to get enrolled in acting. And she has an elder brother named Caleb.

Surprisingly, Keira first asked for an agent at age three, but it was not until she was six that her parents found an agent for her in reward for her good grades at school. And this was mainly because Keira suffers from a learning disorder called dyslexia. Thus her parents were always preoccupied for her learning more than her acting.

Acting was Keira’s determination since she can remember. She started acting in several local amateur productions including ‘After Juliet’ written by her mother. Then in 1994, at the age of nine, Keira acquired a role in Moira Armstrong’s ‘A Village Affair’. After this, she began to play small roles in other productions. And in 1999 she got a role in ‘Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace’.

Keira’s first starring role came in 2001 when she played the daughter of Robin Hood in the Walt Disney Production ‘Princess of Thieves’. After this role, she continued to play different roles in various TV programs until 2002 arrived and Knightley experienced her break out as an actress in the film ‘Bend it like Beckham’. This film was an unexpected, huge international success and lead Keira to be casted in an upcoming film that became Keira’s move towards becoming the new “It” girl. It was ‘Pirates of The Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl’ on 2003, where she actually got the leading female role, and played along side well recognized actors Johnny Depp and Orlando Bloom. Pirates of the Caribbean has so far produced three movies where Keira plays a very important role, and it is in negotiation the filming of a 4^th movie.

Meanwhile, being already introduced to the world of success in acting, Keira has been working on many other productions, and one of them in particular was the movie for the author Jane Austen’s ‘Pride and Prejudice’, where Keira plays the most important character in the story, Elizabeth Bennet. Nonetheless, her role in ‘Pride and Prejudice’ earned Knightley a Golden Globe and an Oscar nomination.

Far from being a pedant actress, Knightley enjoys theatre as she showed on December 2009 with her debut at the Comedy Theatre in London in the play ‘The Misanthrope’. Very passionate about her work, she has admitted in previous interviews she actually feels as a workaholic but has also stated that she could see herself leaving acting whenever she needs a break. On the other hand, Keira has a great passion for making people aware of certain humanitarian campaigns. She is the face for an Amnesty International campaign. Knightley also supports and helps with donations to Comic Relief, a British charity organization founded by comedy scriptwriter Richard Curtis in 1985.

The actress has also traveled to Ethiopia to help and raise awareness on behalf of the Comic Relief charity organization. Also, in 2006 she donated her gown to Oxfam International, a non-governmental organization that fights against poverty and injustice. And in April 2009, Keira appeared in a very criticized video entitled ‘Cut’, where the actress raises awareness of domestic abuse.

Thus far, Keira Knightley has earned a good reputation between actors even though she is still young. Acting is something she loves since she can remember and luckily she is now at the top. But still, she is a very compassionate woman who stands up for what she believes and keeps on demonstrating it by her hard work in raising awareness and helping others.

Main Sources:

www.keiraknightley.com

www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keira_Knightley

www.comicrelief.com

www.oxfam.org