Keira Knightley

Keira Knightley

Keira Christina Knightley, (; born 26 March 1985) is a British actress. She has been nominated for two British Academy Film Awards, three Golden Globe Awards, and two Academy Awards. Knightley began acting as a child on television and made her feature film debut in 1995, before making her breakthrough with the 2002 film Bend It Like Beckham, for which she won the London Film Critics' Circle Award for Best Newcomer. She then starred in the 2003 fantasy swashbuckler film Pirates of the Caribbean, playing Elizabeth Swann, a role that she would reprise in the subsequent films of the franchise. She went on to appear in the Christmas film Love Actually (2003) and portrayed Guinevere in King Arthur (2004). A significant turning point came in her career when Knightley received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress for starring as Elizabeth Bennet in Pride & Prejudice (2005). She became known for starring in several other period dramas, earning a BAFTA and Golden Globe Award nomination for Atonement (2007), and earning critical praise for her performances as Georgiana Cavendish in The Duchess (2008), Sabina Spielrein in A Dangerous Method (2011), and the titular characters in Anna Karenina (2012) and Colette (2018). Knightley received her second Academy Award nomination for portraying Joan Clarke in the historical drama The Imitation Game (2014). Her contemporary film roles were in the romantic comedy Begin Again (2013), the action thriller Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit (2014), the adventure film Everest (2015), and the docudrama Official Secrets (2019).

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