Keira Knightley is an actress from England. She has appeared in both indie and big-budget films and is particularly well-known for her work in historical plays. Two Empire Awards, two Academy Award nominations, three British Academy Film Awards, three Golden Globe Awards, one Screen Actors Guild Award, and one Laurence Olivier Award are among her achievements. Knightley received an OBE for services to theatre and charity in the 2018 Birthday Honours.
Knightley, who was born in London to actors Will Knightley and Sharman Macdonald, had her first agency at the age of six and began working in commercials and television productions. In the science fiction movie Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace, she played Sabé, Padmé Amidala’s handmaiden (1999).
Inside the sports movie Bend It Like Beckham, Knightley used to have a breakthrough role as a tomboy footballer. Her role of Elizabeth Swann inside the fantasy swashbuckler series Pirates of the Caribbean catapulted her to international fame. She starred in the Christmas romantic comedy Love Actually the following year, and also was hailed as a rising adolescent star.
Knightley was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance as Elizabeth Bennet inside the historical drama Pride & Prejudice (2005). She was the third-youngest Best Actress candidate at the time, at the age of 20. Knightley went further to feature in a number of more period films, including Atonement (2007) as a complicated love interest, The Duchess (2008) as tastemaker Georgiana Cavendish, and Anna Karenina as the titular socialite.
She subsequently went on to play an aspiring singer in Begin Again (2013) as well as a medical student in Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit (2014). Knightley made a comeback to historical films with her performance as cryptoanalyst Joan Clarke in The Imitation Game (2014), which earned her a second set of Academy Award and BAFTA nominations, and she received critical praise for her role as that of the titular belle époque writer in Colette.
Knightley has performed on stage in two West End productions: The Misanthrope in 2009, for which she was nominated for an Olivier Award, and The Children’s Hour in 2011. She also appeared in the 2015 Broadway production of Thérèse Raquin as the titular heroine. Knightley is recognised for her strong position on social concerns, and she has collaborated with Amnesty International, Oxfam, and Comic Relief on several occasions. She is married to musician James Righton and has two kids with him.
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