Keira Knightley Biography
Keira Christina Knightley OBE, born March 26, 1985, better known as Keira Knightley, is a popular English actress and television personality. She has garnered numerous honors, including nominations for two Academy Awards, three British Academy Film Awards, and a Laurence Olivier Award.
Wiki Profile
| Full Name: | Keira Christina Knightley |
| Date of Birth: | March 26, 1985 |
| Place of Birth: | London, England |
| State of Origin: | London |
| Nationality: | English |
| Occupation: | Actress |
| Net Worth: | $80 million |
| Husband | James Righton |
Early Life and Education
Keira Knightley was born in London, England, on March 26, 1985 as Keira Christina Knightley. She grew up in a show-business family.
Her father, Will Knightley has been an actor and her mother a playwright by name, Sharman Macdonald.
She grew up in a London suburb with her older brother, Caleb. Knightley later told Marie Claire that playing with doll houses may have influenced her career choice: “Doll houses were a big thing in my childhood,” she said.
I was always making up stories, playing with them for hours. I guess that’s why I’m an actress: I never stopped wanting to play.”
Knightley received her primary education at Teddington School. She was diagnosed with dyslexia at the age of six.
She says that when she was eleven years old, “they deemed me to have gotten over it sufficiently, which was due to her parents’ support,” though she was still a slow reader and couldn’t read out loud.
Career
Knightley first asked for her own agent at the age of three and finally got one when she was six years old. School was not easy for Knightley as she struggled with dyslexia.
Knightley’s first professional acting job came when she was seven years old, and she went on to make a number of appearances on British television.
She landed her first major role in the film Star Wars: Episode 1 – The Phantom Menace when she was in her mid-teens (1999). The same year, Knightley appeared in the television miniseries Oliver Twist alongside Sam Smith, Julie Walters, and Robert Lindsay.
Bend It Like Beckham was Knightley’s breakthrough single in 2002. In this surprise hit, she portrayed tomboy soccer player Juliette “Jules” Paxton.
That same year, she proved herself to be a risk-taker by playing the female lead in the TV film Doctor Zhivago. Knightley took on a role made famous by Julie Christie in the 1962 feature film.
Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl was Keira Knightley’s first blockbuster hit in 2003. Based on a Disneyland ride, this adventure story starred Johnny Depp as the infamous pirate Captain Jack Sparrow.
Elizabeth Swann, Knightley’s character, was caught up in the action alongside Will Turner (Orlando Bloom), and she reprised her role in the film’s 2006 and 2007 sequels.
Knightley starred as Guinevere alongside Clive Owen and Ioan Gruffudd in 2004’s King Arthur. The following year, Knightley starred in Joe Wright’s screen adaptation of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.
She was nominated for an Academy Award for her performance in the film. Then, in 2008, Knightley starred in The Duchess, a biopic about an 18th-century royal.
“I do a lot of period pieces because that’s my taste, because I want to work in Europe, because that’s my home, and that’s generally what’s made in England,” Knightley later explained in a 2015 New York Times interview.
“I love history, you know, but more than that, they’ve been the most interesting characters I’ve been offered.”
Despite this, Knightley has handled historical, contemporary, and futuristic roles with equal ease. She starred in the popular ensemble drama Love Actually (2003).
Knight later co-starred with Andrew Garfield and Carey Mulligan in the quiet science-fiction film Never Let Me Go (2010), and then portrayed real-life pioneering psychoanalyst Sabina Spielren in A Dangerous Method (2011).
Knightley went on to play a variety of roles. In 2012, she co-starred in the apocalyptic comedy Seeking a Friend for the End of the World with Steve Carell, and she also returned to sumptuous period costume for Anna Karenina. In the film, Jude Law plays Anna’s repressed husband, and Aaron Taylor-Johnson plays Anna’s lover.
The actress later appeared in Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit (2014), a spy thriller based on the life of the popular CIA analyst of the same name. Ryan was played by Chris Pine, and Cathy was played by Keira Knightley.
In 2014, Knightley co-starred with Mark Ruffalo in the music comedy/drama Begin Again and the romantic comedy Laggies. She was nominated for both a Golden Globe and an Oscar for her performance as a code-breaker in the WWII drama The Imitation Game this fall.
The following year, Knightley made her Broadway debut in Thérèse Raquin, based on Émile Zola’s novel of the same name, which was published in 1867.
Personal Life
Knightley announced her engagement to British musician, James Righton of the Klaxons in May 2012. She and Righton married in early May 2013 in Mazan, France, and their first child, a daughter named Edie, was born in May 2015. The couple had their second daughter by name Delilah Knightley Righton.
Previously before her relationship and subsequent marriage to James Rigthton, Knightley dated actors, Del Synnott, Jamie Dornan, and Rupert Friend.
Keira Knightly Net Worth
Keira Knightley is a prominent American actress and television personality who an amassed an estimated net worth of $80 million
Social Media
- Instagram: @keiracknightleys
- Twitter: @keiracknightley
