Keira Knightley Biography

Name: Keira Knightley

Born: 22 March 1985 (Age: 26)

Where: London, England

Height: 5' 7"

Occupation : Actress, model

She was born Kiera Knightley on the 22nd of March, 1985, in Teddington, south-west London. Her name would become Keira as her Hollywood career took off, the change shamelessly breaking the golden rule of “I before E except after C” but making the name more easily pronounceable on a worldwide basis. Her father was stage actor Will Knightley, who’d make the occasional foray into television, such as starring as Mr Glegg in the BBC’s 1997 production of The Mill On The Floss.

Thanks to her standout performance in the surprising hit "Bend It Like Beckham" (2002), unknown actress Keira Knightley vaulted to the attention of moviegoers outside her native England. Prior to her playing a young semi-pro soccer player who befriends an Indian girl more interested in joining the team than following her parents' traditional ways, Knightley had already amassed a long list of film, television and theater credits, including a famed - albeit brief - appearance in "Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace" (1999) as Sabe, Natalie Portman's decoy queen. But it was the juggernaut pirate adventure "Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl" (2003) and its two sequels, "Dead Man's Chest" (2005) and "At World's End (2007), that cemented Knightley as a truly international star, able to hold her own with the likes of Johnny Depp and Orlando Bloom. Not one to be pigeonholed, however, she broadened her range in 2005, starring as the headstrong Elizabeth Bennet in "Pride and Prejudice," a role that earned Knightley her first Oscar nomination and demonstrated that she was more than just a pretty face in the midst of testosterone-fueled action movies.