Keira Knightley's Desire For Fame Began At A Shockingly Young Age

By the time Keira Knightley secured her first agent, she'd already spent half her life fighting for one. Most children ask for toys at age three; young Keira requested representation. If the "Pirates of the Caribbean" star sounds like a precocious child, it's likely because she was born into showbiz — quite literally. Her father, Will Knightley, was an actor, while her mother, Sharman Macdonald, was a playwright and also an actor. The worried parents initially hoped to spare their daughter from the fickle world of entertainment, but one of Keira's school teachers suggested they use that ambition to improve her focus in school since the youngster was struggling due to dyslexia.

As the "Atonement" star subsequently revealed to the Independent, "The head teacher told them, 'Get her to do it but tell her she is not allowed to do it unless the grades go up.'" Her mom reluctantly agreed, striking a deal: If she spent her school holidays reading every single day, they would get her an agent. One bookish summer vacation later, she was already landing roles onscreen. After several small television and commercial appearances as a child, Keira went on to bag a part as Natalie Portman's decoy in "Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace." The resemblance between the two young women was so uncanny that even her own mother reportedly couldn't tell them apart.

Keira Knightley's childhood was spent in the leafy, affluent suburb of Teddington, in South West London. The area, resting upon the River Thames, has been home to some pretty famous faces over the years. Alan Turing, whose life was depicted in "The Imitation Game" — a film Knightley herself featured in — lived just down the road in Hampton. Zendaya's boyfriend Tom Holland also grew up in neighboring Kingston upon Thames, and even Queen Charlotte, on whom the "Bridgerton" character is based, resided in nearby Kew Palace with her husband King George III. With so much talent hailing from one small pocket of the world, it's easy to wonder if there's something in the Thames water.

But growing up wasn't always easy for the young starlet. Knightley was diagnosed with dyslexia at the age of six and as she explained to the Independent, "I would memorize when people read books to me and then I'd pretend to read back to them. They didn't figure it out for quite a while." She didn't let this setback stop her, though. As her secondary school head teacher, Richard Weeks, proudly confirmed to the Daily Mail, "In her GCSEs she got six A*s, three As and a B. She was almost our highest-achieving student." 

In the UK, GCSEs are national exams typically taken at age 16. For Knightley, this was right around when she started filming her breakout role in "Bend It Like Beckham." As Weeks added of the ambitious youngster, whose career was about to take off, "She was a very down-to-earth, normal pupil and she was completely accepted by other people here."