HIDDEN DEPTHS

KEIRA KNIGHTLEY MIGHT BE BOX-OFFICE GOLD, BUT BRITAIN’S MOST DAZZLING YOUNG STAR HAS NO INTENTION OF RESTING ON HER LAURELS words: pierre de villiers THE BALLROOM AT Claridge’s is a fairy-tale setting. The opulent chandeliers droop down from the ceiling casting light over gold-coloured curtains and ornate mirrors. It’s the perfect backdrop for a glamorous Hollywood story. As Keira Knightley enters the room, she looks every inch the modern princess, wearing a stunning black number and killer heels. She is polished: her blonde highlights are shown off by a bob. Her most striking feature, though, is her smile – a wide grin that she flashes when the subject of her rise to fame comes up. “I’ve been very, very fortunate,” she admits. “There are so many gifted people in this business that luck is going to play a major role in helping you climb the ladder. I found some good roles early on and everything’s taken off after that.” A reminder of just how well things have been going is yards away from where Knightley, who turned 21 this year, sits: a poster of her new film Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, on which the actress is pictured standing shoulder to shoulder with Johnny Depp and Orlando Bloom. As a movie star she has clearly arrived, a point driven home by the fact that she recently appeared on the cover of Vanity Fair magazine – nude, as it happens – alongside Scarlett Johansson. Her talent is being recognised; Knightley recently landed a well deserved Academy Award nomination for her role as Elizabeth Bennet in Pride & Prejudice. As a model, her stock is also rising. She went from fronting the advertising campaign for Asprey Jewellers to being the new face of Chanel’s Coco Mademoiselle perfume. She’s used her high profile to speak out on behalf of Wateraid (an organisation providing clean drinking water to countries in the developing world). Last December, the actress joined other celebrities at Pinewood Studios for an underwater photo shoot (pictured) by photographer Candice to raise awareness for the charity. She also auctioned off her Oscar-night dress for £4,000, in aid of Oxfam. Despite all this, Knightley comes across as humble, funny and self-deprecating. It could be an act, of course, but her comments have often seemed unguarded For instance, in a recent radio interview, she happily talked about her PMT. I tell Knightley she is refreshingly forthright. “Am I really?” she shrieks. “I don’t read anything that’s written about me only because it would be completely unhelpful. Anything nice is probably too nice and anything nasty is probably too nasty, so either way ignorance is bliss. I have no idea what I’m saying anyway in interviews. I get quoted back to myself and think: ‘Oh no, did I really say that?’ I guess I can’t stop myself.” Knightley’s candour is all the more surprising when you consider she has been an actress most of her life. Acting is in her blood, given her genes. The star’s mother is award-winning Scottish playwright, Sharman MacDonald, and her father, Will Knightley, a TV actor. Growing up in Teddington, Middlesex, with older brother, Caleb, Knightley watched her artistic parents and decided she wanted to join in the fun. “I was three, apparently, when I asked my father to get me an agent,” she says, “and got one when I was six. As my mum’s a writer and my dad an actor, they had agents calling all the time. I was rather pissed off that I didn’t have one to call.” She was rewarded with an agent in a bid to help her overcome dyslexia, diagnosed at an early age. “My mum said: ‘Okay, if you come to me with a book in your hand and a smile on your face every single day through the summer holidays, I’ll get you an agent at the end of it,’” the actress remembers. “So it was a case of: ‘Okay, improve your grades then.’” Knightley’s ambition meant that school – she attended the local Teddington comprehensive – became merely a means to an end. “I didn’t mind school but left at 16 when you legally can,” she says. By then she was already a jobbing actress, having landed her first role, in 1993 television drama Royal Celebration, at the age of seven. More television work (including The Bill) followed, as did a small part in the movie, A Village Affair, but by the end of the 1990s Knightley was awaiting that lucky break. It arrived in the shape of George Lucas, who was looking for a young actress to play Queen Amidala’s (Natalie Portman) decoy, Sabé, in Star Wars: Episode One: The Phantom Menace. Knightley’s uncanny likeness to Portman – when they were both in costume not even their mothers could tell them apart – did the trick and the girl from Teddington was well on her way. More television work followed before she shed her inhibitions (along with her clothes) in the mini series Doctor Zhivago, screened in 2002. Impressed by her performances, director Gurinder Chadha gave Knightley the role which was to launch her as a potential big player: the football-mad tomboy Jules in Bend It Like Beckham. The script called for Knightley and co-star Parminder Nagra (who went on to star in ER) to show off their footballing skills. As both stars were picking up bruises at an alarming rate, Chadha suggested they use body doubles but Knightley flatly refused. “It’s important for me to do the action scenes myself,” she explains. “I don’t like making a movie and not being involved in it.” Little did the actress know she was about to be given the opportunity to roll up her sleeves and get involved in one of the most successful films of all time. Knightley received a call from uber-producer Jerry Bruckheimer. The Hollywood big-wig was throwing his weight behind a film called Pirates Of The Caribbean: The Curse Of The Black Pearl and asked Knightley to star as femme fatale Elizabeth Swann. “Nobody thought the first film would work,” she recalls with a smile. “We were doing a movie based on a Disney theme-park ride, after all. And it was a genre – pirate films – that had not worked for 50 years.” However, the film had the incomparable Johnny Depp on board and it was the actor’s portrayal of camp pirate Jack Sparrow that struck the biggest chord with audiences when the film came out in 2003. Pirates Of The Caribbean would go on to make more than $600 million worldwide, land Depp an Oscar nomination, spawn two sequels (the third is still in production) and turn Knightley into the hottest young actress to come out of Blighty. “I think we were all surprised by the film’s success,” Knightley admits. “But I had a strong feeling that Johnny’s performance was so wickedly funny and charming that audiences were going to love the film. I think he’s a genius.” The runaway success of Pirates changed Knightley’s life almost overnight. Suddenly everyone on both sides of the pond wanted to know more about the lanky teenager. Magazine covers became Keira-rich environments as the press explored everything from the size of her lips (they were rumoured to be altered) to her taste in football (West Ham United). Knightley responded to the media frenzy by keeping her head down and working hard. “I grew up in the acting world so I won’t delude myself into thinking that if you’re talented and good-looking that’s all it takes,” she says. “What’s important is not to rest on your laurels, to keep working hard and to find more good roles.” Knightley’s search for decent parts has been somewhat hit and miss. The starlet’s bare midriff received more column inches than her performance in period action drama King Arthur, while sci-fiflick The Jacket – a film she fought tooth and nail to be part of – was a critical and commercial failure. She made a strong comeback in Pride & Prejudice, but was then miscast as real-life bounty hunter Domino Harvey in the poorly-received Domino. Finding herself in choppy waters the actress returned to the safety of the Pirates Of The Caribbean franchise, filming number two, which is out now, and three, released in 2007, back to back over the last couple of years. “Doing films back to back leaves you exhausted, not physically so much as psychologically,” she points out. “You feel a bit drained and homesick and you forget what your life used to be like.” An example of how fast her life has morphed is illustrated by a recent incident. “I went to the Toronto film festival because Pride & Prejudice was showing there and I was in a rush to get back the next morning to be on set for Pirates,” she says, giggling. “I had just done the red carpet in this tight dress and had to go straight to the airport, looking a bit like Marilyn Monroe. It’s the one time I didn’t get stopped at security.” Then, of course, there’s the question of her love life. Her relationship with Irish model Jamie Dornan, who has been the face of Calvin Klein and Dior Homme, recently came to a halt (pressures of work were cited). Currently she’s believed to be seeing Pride & Prejudice co-star Rupert Friend. Although the actress won’t confirm details, she concedes it’s difficult to have a steady relationship while working like a demon. “Love isn’t something you can predict whether you’re busy or waiting around for the next film,” explains Knightley. “It can happen at any time. I’m an incurable romantic at heart.” While the actress dodges questions about her private life, she knows the loss of privacy comes with the job. “It’s strange because people are now calling my name in the street,” she says. “And there are photographers chasing me around London. But apart from that, I can live a normal life.” One way of coping is to just ignore it, but there are certain rumours the actress feels compelled to quash. “I can safely say I am not anorexic,” she states, after tabloids recently noted the actress looked extremely thin. “I have a lot of experience with anorexia. My grandmother and great grandmother suffered from it, as did a lot of friends at school. It’s good that people are talking about it and girls are being made aware. It’s normally high-achieving young woman who suffer from it so it’s understandable that the press would associate it with high-achieving people in the film industry. I’m not saying there aren’t people in it who suffer from it. I’m just not one of them.” On a closing note, the strong-minded actress has a thing or two to say about life in the public eye. “I reject being a role model,” states Knightley emphatically. “The idea that you put someone up there and say that’s how to behave is ridiculous. Characters can be role models. If young people look up to Elizabeth Swann or Elizabeth Bennet then I’m glad.” Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest is out now.