Keira Knightley: An actress with panache!

She was destined to be an actress as it was in her blood. An actor father and a playwright mother meant that Hollywood was ever eager to absorb the talent of this striking screen goddess.

Keira Christina Knightley was born on 26th March 1985 to actor Will Knightley and actress turned playwright Sharman MacDonald. Growing up in the backyard of such fine creative people meant that she grew up with big aspirations and got all the necessary education on acting at home itself. It is no wonder then that at the tender age of 3 she had asked for her own agent and got it by the time she turned 6.

However, her parents still had a few tricks up their sleeves. As part of the deal, Keira, who is dyslexic, had to study through the school holidays and she was only permitted to work on productions if they didn’t interfere with her education. Her acting skills were regularly honed as she grew up morphing into waif like beauty. The heady mix of beauty with extra-ordinary acting skills was waiting for world’s attention. And soon under thousands flashbulbs she shone radiantly.

At the tender age of 7, Keira took her babysteps in acting. Her first stint with the camera was in 1993 for a TV show “Screen One: Royal Celebration” and got her first multi-scene performance in A Village Affair (1995). Later she was limited to tid and bits in other shows.

Keira’s name to fame was at the age of 14 when she played Natalie Portman’s decoy Padme in Star wars: Episode-I-The Phantom Menace (1999).

But her big break came in 2001, when she was cast in the summer blockbuster ‘Bend It Like Beckham.’ Despite being pitted against British sitcom star Parminder Nagra, she was noticed for her strong body language, witty performance and screen presence.

There was no looking back after the bend. Keira became serious about her roles and her studies, which enabled her to show that she was not only beautiful but also a thinking actress. She stepped into Julie Christie’s shoes for the controversial remake of the classic ‘Dr. Zhivago’, played Louise in ‘Pure’, and filmed ‘Love, Actually’ alongside Liam Neeson and Hugh Grant.

A movie filmed after ‘Love Actually’ but released before it gained her much acclaim not only as an actor but a stunner despite the anorexic frame. Pirates of the Caribbean sequels in which Keira played the female lead was a movie that came by sheer luck. The auditions were going on in London for ‘Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003)’, and not only was Keira late but was at the end of auditions list. Yet she somehow managed to bag the role in her kitty. The movie went on to become a blockbuster and catapulted the damsel with angelic face Brit into the big league of stars.

Keira went ahead with the other two sequels of Pirates of the Caribbean – Dead Man’s Chest (2006) and At World’s End (2007). Although they could not match up with the profit made by the first one, they were anticipatory enough. Audience savoured each moment of the foul wine, sword-buckling pirate Elizabeth Swann played to perfection by the talented actress who was able to hold her own with the likes of Johnny Depp and Orlando Bloom.