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Keira Knightley: Bend It Like Beckham
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Few actresses enjoy the kind of success Keira Knightley saw in 2003. First, her major picture starring debut, Pirates Of The Caribbean, entered the all-time Top 20 of box-office hits. Then, due to this success, her earlier low-budget effort, Bend It Like Beckham, already a cult smash, found its release widened dramatically, taking it into undreamed of profit. Following these with Love, Actually, the latest cute rom-com from Richard "Notting Hill" Curtis, her rise in a few short months would be nothing short of phenomenal. And still she was only 18.
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Born 1985, March - Pixie-ish British actress Keira Knightley went from a relative unknown to a blockbuster leading lady after 2002's sleeper soccer flick Bend It Like Beckham caught on with an international audience. Born in Teddington, London, England, in 1985, young Knightley was enticed by the lure of cinema at an early age.
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Knightley returned to more English television productions until 2001, when she earned a substantial role in the UK theatrical feature, “The Hole†(2001), a psychological thriller co-starring American actress Thora Birch. The film, which had a direct-to-video release in the States, featured a brief topless scene from the then-15-year-old Knightley. That same year, she ... made her debut as a lead actress in the Walt Disney TV movie “Princess of Thieves,†playing the teenage daughter of Robin Hood. During this time, Knightley was also studying in school, and while finishing her exams in 2001, filmed “Bend It Like Beckham,†a charming comedy-romance about an Indian girl (Parminder Nagra) whose love for soccer clashes with her family’s traditional beliefs. Knightley played Nagra’s friend, who struggles with her own family issues, including her mother (Juliet Stevenson) wanting her to act more feminine. The two girls’ issues struck a chord with world audiences and critics took notice of Knightley’s ability to play drama and comedy, as well as act believably physical in the sporting scenes.
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In the TV movie The Princess of Thieves (2001), Keira played the title role of Robin Hood’s daughter Gwyn, who takes on the family business after her father dies. Despite her lack of soccer experience, she was chosen for a lead role in the independent feature Bend It Like Beckham (2002). Along with Parminder Nagra, who played the lead role in the film, Keira trained full time with a coach for three months in order to successfully play a soccer-obsessed teenager. They learned Futebol de Salao -- the Brazilian method of playing soccer and repeated the tricky moves over and over, even practising them at home each night. At one point, when Keira sustained a concussion, the director suggested that they use doubles, but the girls refused, saying they wanted to do the soccer action themselves.
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Knightley made headlines in the worldwide sleeper hit, Bend it Like Beckham as Jules Paxton opposite Parminder K. Nagra. After wrapping Pirates of the Caribbean, she went straight into production on another Jerry Bruckheimer Films production, King Arthur, in which she portrayed Guinevere. Directed by Antoine Fuqua, the film ... starred Clive Owen as Arthur.
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The summer before her final year of high school, Knightley takes a brief hiatus to film Bend It Like Beckham, a boisterous cross-cultural comedy about an Anglo-Indian teenage girl who idolizes soccer star David Beckham. Knightley plays the main character's soccer-playing, tomboy, best friend. "Everything's changed for me since Beckham," Knightley says to PEOPLE. "It's been rather mad, but lovely."
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