Facts
Keira Knightley's first major role came in the form of
Natasha Jordan in the romantic feature A Village
Affair (1994). The feature drama, which starred
Sophie Ward
and Nathanial Parker as a seemingly perfect couple
who's life is turned up-side down once a young
socialite heiress played by Kerry
Fox, enters their world.
Knightley continued to length her
credits by appearing in the drama Innocent Lies
(1996) and the television features
Treasure Seekers (1996) and Coming Home (1998).
The following year, Knightley
obtained the role of a lifetime when
she was cast alongside Natalie Portman
in the 1999 George Lucas sci-fi series Star
Wars: Episode I- The Phantom Menace.
Her breakthrough role, however, came
when she was still in her teens in
the form of writer-director Gurinder Chadha's
unlikely sleeper hit Bend It Like Beckham
(2002) as part of a pair of soccer-obsessed
teen gal pals who dream of careers kicking
like soccer superstar David Beckham. Knightley
quickly capitalized on the attention she garnered
as the second banana in the warm, quirky film and
was snatched up by Disney
for the big screen blockbuster Pirates of the Caribbean
(2003), loosely based on the beloved theme park attraction,
in which she played Elizabeth Swann,
the daughter of a governor who teams
with rogue pirate and unlikely ally
(Johhny Depp)
and a dashing love interest (Orlando Bloom)
to cross blades with evil marauders led
by the villainous Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush)--she would later
reprise the role for a pair of sequels shot
back-to-back in 2005.
The actress was also used to terrfic
effect in writer-director Richard Curtis' Love Actually
(2003) as a bride who realizes her groom's best man is madly in love with her.
Next, Knightley's athletic frame and
acting intensity were put to good use
in the action-minded King Arthur (2004), a
"demystified" and supposedly historically correct
interpretation of the myth of the
English King in which she played Queen Guinevere
as a blue warpaint-sporting warrior chieftess. She
followed up with a turn in the mysterioso
thriller The Jacket (2005) playing the woman who
may hold the key to the salvation
of an amnesiac man (Adrien Brody)
who envisions their meeting in the future.
The actress, who seemed to be even more
confident with each role, took center stage
as the central figure character in
director Tony Scott's hyperkinetic Domino
(2005), playing Domino Harvey, the real-life
daughter of actor Laurence
Harvey who defied her Beverly Hills
upbringing and early career as a model
to become a resourceful, tough-as-nails
bounty hunter. Knightley delivered a
dynamic performance, but it was frequently
undercut by Scott's overly
stylized direction.
Her final 2005 film was a refreshingly
lively adaptation of Jane Austen's
classic Pride and Prejudice, which
cast Knightley as the tale's bright and
strong-willed heroine Elizabeth Bennett,
a role that allowed much of the actress'
coltish personal charm and winsome pluck to shine through.
