Keira Knightley
Keira Christina Knightley OBE (/ˈkɪərə ˈnaɪtli/; born 26 March 1985) is an English actress. Known for her work in independent films and blockbusters, particularly period dramas, she has received numerous accolades, including nominations for two Academy Awards, three BAFTAs, three Golden Globes, and a Laurence Olivier Award. In 2018, she was appointed an OBE at Buckingham Palace for services to drama and charity.[2]
Keira Knightley
26 March 1985
Keira Christina Righton[1]
Actress, activist, model, singer, philanthropist
1991–present
2
- Will Knightley (father)
- Sharman Macdonald (mother)
Born in London to actors Will Knightley and Sharman Macdonald, Knightley obtained an agent at age six and initially worked in commercials and television films. Following a minor role as Sabé in Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace (1999), her breakthrough came when she played a tomboy footballer in Bend It Like Beckham (2002) and co-starred in Love Actually (2003). She went on to achieve global recognition for playing Elizabeth Swann in the Pirates of the Caribbean film series (2003–2017).
For her portrayal of Elizabeth Bennet in Pride & Prejudice (2005), Knightley was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress. She starred in several more period films over the next few years, including Atonement (2007), The Duchess (2008), A Dangerous Method (2011), and Anna Karenina (2012). She then forayed into contemporary pieces, with headline parts in Seeking a Friend for the End of the World (2012), Begin Again (2013), and Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit (2014). Knightley returned to historical films playing Joan Clarke in The Imitation Game (2014), earning a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. She later starred as the title character in Colette (2018) and journalist Loretta McLaughlin in Boston Strangler (2023).
On stage, Knightley has appeared in two West End productions: The Misanthrope in 2009, which earned her an Olivier Award nomination, and The Children's Hour in 2011. She also starred as the titular heroine in the 2015 Broadway production of Thérèse Raquin. Knightley is known for her outspoken stance on social issues and has worked extensively with Amnesty International, Oxfam, and Comic Relief. She is married to musician James Righton, with whom she has two daughters.
Early life and education[edit]
Keira Christina Knightley was born on 26 March 1985 in the London suburb of Teddington, to stage actors Will Knightley and Sharman Macdonald.[3] She was meant to be named "Kiera", the anglicised form of "Kira", after the Soviet figure skater Kira Ivanova, whom her father admired; however, Macdonald misspelt the name when she registered her daughter's birth certificate, writing the e before the i.[4] Her father is English and her mother is of Scottish and Welsh descent.[5] Knightley has an older brother, Caleb.[6] Macdonald worked as a playwright after her acting career came to an end. Knightley's parents encountered substantial financial difficulties following the birth of her brother;[7] her father, a "middling" actor, agreed to a second child only if her mother sold a script first. However, her parents' varying degrees of success did not deter Knightley's curiosity about the profession.[8] Macdonald introduced her own children to theatre and ballet very early.[9] This inspired Knightley's interest in acting.[10]
Knightley attended Teddington School.[11] She was diagnosed with dyslexia at age six, but by the time she was eleven, with her parents' support, she says, "they deemed me to have got over it sufficiently". She is still a slow reader and cannot read out loud.[12] Knightley has said she was "single-minded about acting".[13] At age three, she requested to obtain an agent like her parents and secured one at six. This led to her taking a number of small parts in television dramas.[14] She acted in a number of local amateur productions, which included After Juliet, written by her mother, and United States, written by her drama teacher. Knightley began studying her A-Levels at Esher College, but left after a year to pursue an acting career.[15] Her mother's friends encouraged her to go to drama school, which she declined for financial and professional reasons.[16]
Other ventures[edit]
Advocacy and philanthropy[edit]
Knightley received media attention for her perspectives on feminism, voiced in an interview with Harper's Bazaar UK published in the February 2014 edition. She explained that women face greater hurdles in the film industry compared to their male counterparts, and also revealed that she was perplexed by the use of "feminist" in a derogatory sense.[186] Knightley posed topless for the September 2014 cover of Interview magazine, on condition that the image not be digitally altered, to draw attention to how "women's bodies are a battleground and photography is partly to blame."[187] For International Women's Day 2014, Knightley was one of the artist signatories of Amnesty International's letter to British Prime Minister David Cameron, in which the organisation campaigned for women's rights in Afghanistan.[188] After the birth of her first daughter, she penned an essay about childbirth, entitled "The Weaker Sex", featured in the collection Feminists Don't Wear Pink and Other Lies.[189] Knightley does not shoot nude scenes for her films, unless directed by a female filmmaker.[190]
Knightley is the face of an Amnesty International campaign to support human rights, marking the sixtieth anniversary of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights.[191] In 2004, she travelled to Ethiopia alongside Richard Curtis, Sanjeev Bhaskar and Julian Metcalfe on behalf of the Comic Relief charity.[192] She posed for photos for WaterAid in 2005 and also for the American Library Association's "Read" campaign (a promotional poster of Pride & Prejudice).[193] The dress she wore to the 2006 Academy Awards was donated to the charity Oxfam, where it raised £4,300.[194] In April 2009, Knightley appeared in a video to raise awareness of domestic abuse entitled Cut shot for Women's Aid.[195] The video created controversy, with some sources calling it too graphic, while other groups support the video for showing a realistic depiction of domestic violence.[196] In November 2010, Knightley became patron of the SMA Trust, a British charity that funds medical research into the disease spinal muscular atrophy.[197] In July 2014 Knightley travelled to South Sudan on behalf of Oxfam to meet refugees of the South Sudanese Civil War and raise awareness of the conflict.[198]
In May 2016, Knightley signed a letter imploring Britain to vote "remain" in the UK EU referendum. The letter was also signed by John le Carré, Benedict Cumberbatch and Danny Boyle among others.[199] Later, she appeared in a video aimed at encouraging younger people to vote in the referendum.[200] On 12 September 2016, Knightley, along with Cate Blanchett, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Peter Capaldi, Douglas Booth, Neil Gaiman, Jesse Eisenberg, Juliet Stevenson, Kit Harington and Stanley Tucci, appeared in a video from the United Nations' refugee agency UNHCR to help raise awareness of the global refugee crisis. The video, titled "What They Took With Them", has the actors reading a poem, written by Jenifer Toksvig and inspired by primary accounts of refugees, and is part of UNHCR's #WithRefugees campaign, of which also includes a petition to governments to expand asylum to provide further shelter, integrating job opportunities, and education.[201] In September 2016, Knightley co-hosted A Night to Remember, part of the Green Carpet Challenge, a charity event highlighting sustainability within the fashion industry.[202]
In September 2017, Knightley traded stocks on behalf of the spinal muscular atrophy charity SMA Trust as part of the BGC Charity Day, which was set up to commemorate the stockbrokers who were killed during the September 11 attacks.[203] In April 2020, Knightley participated in a World Health Day livestream to raise money for charity during the COVID-19 pandemic.[204] In June 2020, she and other celebrities designed a range of pin badges for the #PinYourThanks campaign, dedicated to thanking essential workers. All profits went to NHS Charities Together and Volunteering Matters.[205] In October 2020, she backed Made By Dyslexia, a global campaign to help teachers address "dyslexic strengths". It has trained a quarter of a million teachers and started an online program.[206] Knightley participated in a skit entitled 2020 The Movie, commemorating Red Nose Day 2021.[207]
Fashion endorsements[edit]
Knightley was the celebrity face for the luxury goods brands Asprey and Shiatzy Chen as well as Lux haircare products in Japanese television commercials.[208] In April 2006, she was confirmed as the new celebrity face of Chanel's perfume Coco Mademoiselle, though the first photo from the campaign was not released until May 2007.[209] Knightley has appeared in television commercials for Chanel directed by Joe Wright since 2007, and has endorsed Chanel Fine Jewellery's collection Coco Crush.[210] In 2008, Knightley was the highest-earning British Hollywood star according to the Forbes Celebrity 100 list[211] and was named amongst the most bankable actors in 2009.[212]
Personal life[edit]
Knightley previously dated actors Del Synnott, Jamie Dornan (2003–2005), and Rupert Friend (2005–2010).[213][214] She began a relationship with musician James Righton in February 2011.[215] They married on 4 May 2013 in Mazan, France.[216] They have two daughters together, born in 2015 and 2019.[217][218] The family resides in Canonbury, Islington, London.[219] Knightley advocates for equal paternity leave and has spoken about the expense of childcare in England. She remarked in 2016 on "how lucky I've been to be able to afford really good childcare, otherwise it would be at least four years out of my career."[220][221] She has no social media profiles in an effort to preserve her family's privacy.[156]
Knightley won a libel case against the British tabloid Daily Mail in 2007 after it had falsely claimed that she had an eating disorder. Awarded £3,000 in damages, she added to the sum and donated £6,000 to Beat, a charity for those with mental illness and eating disorders.[222] In February 2010, a 41-year-old man was charged with harassment after trying to contact Knightley on several occasions outside London's Comedy Theatre, where she was performing in The Misanthrope.[223] The subsequent trial folded after she was unavailable to testify in court.[224] Another man was sentenced to eight weeks in prison after harassing Knightley outside her home and stalking her in December 2016.[225]
Knightley took a break from working in 2006,[226] suggesting that she wanted to take some time off acting to travel and focus on her personal life.[227] In 2018, Knightley revealed that she had a mental breakdown at age 22 and had been later diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), since she struggled to adjust to her sudden rise to stardom. She recounted how she did not leave her home for three months up until early 2008, and needed to have hypnotherapy to prevent panic attacks so she could be able to attend that year's BAFTA Awards, where she was nominated for her performance in Atonement.[173]
Knightley is a lifelong supporter of English football club West Ham United.