As Queen Amidala's aide in Star Wars: Episode 1 - The Phantom Menace, Keira Knightley drew attention because of her eerie resemblance to the equally hot Natalie Portman. But her witty performance in Bend It Like Beckham and damsel with an attitude role in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl made people take notice.

Biography

Born to actor/playwright parents in Teddington, Middlesex, England, Keira Knightley was born on March 22, 1985. At 3 years old, she asked her mother for an agent, feeling jealous that she never received the same amount of calls her parents did. At age 6, the Knightleys agreed to let their daughter have an agent provided that she studies every day during the summer holidays.

This was no small feat for the young Keira Knightley who is dyslexic, but she persevered. Although her parents envisioned a more secure career for their daughter, Keira Knightley started to get various acting jobs. Schooling at a nearby comprehensive establishment remained her focal point, but acting as a career choice gradually became a reality.

Pursuing artistic integrity and the satisfaction derived from playing different characters, Keira Knightley's hard work paid off at an early age. European made-for-TV movies and shows started to dot her resume by the age of 11, but it was a stroke of luck that helped her along the way.

Thanks to hard work, and a close resemblance to star Natalie Portman, Keira Knightley was cast as Portman's handmaiden in Star Wars: Episode 1 - The Phantom Menace. Her small but memorable performance garnered her attention in Britain and the U.S. After the release of the film in 1999, Keira landed a role in an Oliver Twist TV miniseries portraying Rose Fleming.

After Star Wars and Oliver Twist, things got even better. In 2001, Knightley starred in the successful British film The Hole, and spent three months in Slovakia and Prague filming a 2002 TV version of Doctor Zhivago, in which she played Lara, the same character Julie Christie played in the famous 1965 version. This was all before her 18th birthday.

But is was her other project in 2002 that served as her breakthrough role. Keira Knightley starred in Bend It Like Beckham, a hugely popular British comedy whose unexpected success has been likened to that of My Big Fat Greek Wedding. No longer an underground hit, the film made it big at the North American box office. Thanks to Keira's portrayal of a determined soccer player, she can add the British Newcomer of the Year trophy courtesy of the London Critics Circle Film Awards, and a Best Actress award by the Bordeaux International Festival of Women in Cinema to her mantle.

The summer of 2003 ushered in the release of the Hollywood blockbuster Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, with Keira as the romantic lead. The British comedy Love Actually, with a star-studded cast including Hugh Grant, Emma Thompson and Liam Neeson, was released in November 2003, while King Arthur was a summer 2004 release.

In 2005, Keira Knightley added The Jacket, costarring Adrien Brody, to her resume, as well as Pride and Prejudice, for which she garnered a Best Actress nomination from the Academy Awards in 2006.

2006 also saw her in the sequel to Pirates of the Caribbean, and in 2007 Keira Knightley appeared in the third installment of Pirates with Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, the critically acclaimed Atonement and the historical drama Silk.

The following year, Keira Knightley expanded her resume even further as she was cast in The Edge of Love and The Duchess, and ranked No. 39 on AskMen.com's Top 99 list of Most Desirable Women.

Sexiness

We're no math whizzes, but add up a British accent, a bodacious body and an angelic face, and you get one fine woman. This is certainly the case with Keira Knightley, whose corset-wearing character in Pirates of the Caribbean was one of the highlights of summer 2003. In fact, she's so fine, we want to make her swab our deck.

She has also ranked several times on AskMen.com's annual Top 99 Most Desirable Women -- she was No. 99 in 2003, No. 35 in 2006, No. 52 in 2007, and No. 39 in 2008.

Success

Keira Knightley's career is replete with blockbuster successes, underground hits and everything in between. After some TV exposure in Britain, her appearance as Sab, Queen Amidala's handmaiden in Star Wars: Episode 1 - The Phantom Menace, led to comparisons between her and Natalie Portman.

A role in the made-for-TV version of Oliver Twist followed, as did a top performance in The Hole, a suspenseful tale of four British teenagers who discover a secret bomb shelter and get locked inside.

In 2001, both those hits helped pave the way for success across the Atlantic. One year later, the release of Bend It Like Beckham in the UK was hailed as a rousing success. The film was subsequently released in the U.S. and dubbed "the sleeper hit of 2003," sending lots of praise Knightley's way. She shared the Bordeaux International Festival of Women in Cinema's Golden Wave award with her costar, Parminder Nagra, was named British Newcomer of the Year by the London Critics Circle Film Awards, and was nominated by the Empire Awards and the Online Film Critics Society Awards.

New fans caught her in the summer blockbuster of 2003, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, alongside Orlando Bloom and Johnny Depp. Her portrayal of Elizabeth Swann garnered her nominations from the Visual Effects Society Awards, the Empire Awards and the Saturn Award by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films.

After her 2006 Best Actress nomination at the Academy Awards for Pride and Prejudice, Keira Knightley appeared in the sequel to Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006).

2007 was also a busy year for the actress with roles in the third Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, Atonement and Silk. And in 2008, she was cast in The Edge of Love and The Duchess.

Birth name: Keira Christina Knightley
Born: March 26, 1985
Origin: Teddington, Middlesex, England England
Height: 5' 7" (1.70 m)