Smash hit

At 18, Knightley is already something of a show-business veteran. By the time she was seven she had made her television debut, and at 12 she was playing Sabé in Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, a role which she refers to as “a glorified extra”.

After that she appeared in the teen horror film The Hole, Gillies MacKinnon’s flop Pure, and Bend It Like Beckham, which has become one of the year’s surprise hits in America. Then last year she was hailed as the “new Julie Christie” when she appeared in a BBC adaptation of Doctor Zhivago.

It was that part that first got her noticed in America. Jerry Bruckheimer, the producer of Pirates, was so impressed by Knightley that he cast her again, for King Arthur, before Pirates had even opened.

“I think she’s great in our movie and that’s all I care about,” Bruckheimer enthuses. “Whether Pirates succeeds or fails, she’s still a wonderful actress.

“There’s a wholesome quality in her that I like enormously. She’s beautiful in a classic way. She doesn’t have that contemporary look a lot of American girls have. She has a contemporary attitude, but her looks are very old-fashioned.”

Following the release of Pirates, she will be seen later this year in Love Actually, as part of an ensemble that includes Hugh Grant, Laura Linney, Colin Firth and Liam Neeson.

She is currently undergoing extensive physical training for her role as Guinevere in King Arthur, including boxing, horseriding and archery, as well as sword, knife and axe fighting.

Now that she is 18, Knightley can legally work alone in America, but she confesses that she likes the security of having her mother around.

“I have to say LA is not a place I would ever come to by myself,” she says. “I’m lucky that my mum’s a writer so she can just take her work with her wherever. I think you have to be a very, very, very strong person to be here as an actress, and actually as a woman at all.

“There’s a lot of pressures to conform to a certain type, to be thin and blonde and busty and whatever. I’m a skinny person, and when I’d go into clothes shops, I couldn’t fit into some of the clothes, so there are some ridiculously skinny people here.

“With my mum here I can stay slightly outside of it and look on and giggle at the absurdity of everything. You have to be strong and you have to be pretty worldly. I will learn those things in time, but I haven’t had time to learn them yet.”

With MacDonald — who wrote The Winter Guest (made into a film, directed by Alan Rickman and starring Emma Thompson) — around so much, Knightley says she is forbidden from forgetting her Scottish roots. She would have felt very torn if, by some miracle, Scotland had made it through to the World Cup. Were that the case, she says, “My mum would never have spoken to me again if I had cheered for England, but luckily that didn’t arise.”

Three years ago, Keira’s musings on the aftermath of the death of Romeo and Juliet prompted MacDonald to write After Juliet.

When it was performed at the National Theatre in London, Keira took the lead role, while her older brother Caleb composed the music.

Knightley admits that her close-knit family have been crucial. “I ask their opinion a lot, and what they say goes. It means a lot to me to be able to ask for their advice when I don't know what to do.”

The theme of female empowerment in Bend It Like Beckham has certainly struck a chord with America’s pre-teens and teens, and in a similar way Knightley’s role in Pirates puts a modern spin on the classic swashbuckling heroine.

“I think if you’d made this film 20 years ago, even 10 to 15 years ago, my character would have been a damsel in distress, she would be the girl, probably tied up a couple of times and get rescued by the boys and not do a lot to save herself,” she says.

“The fact this film is made today means that actually we can say, ‘No, sorry, she fights back and gives as good as she gets.’ Certainly Bend It Like Beckham says something similar. Why would you want to be the simpering maiden in the corner when you could be hitting people in the head?” An early American review of Bend It Like Beckham referred to the actress as the “sexiest tomboy beanpole on the planet”, and thanks to its use as a blurb in internet advertising, that became something of a popular catch phrase this spring in certain corners of the online community.

All this comes as a shock to Knightley as her voice rises with seemingly genuine surprise. “I’m a tomboy beanpole? I can’t use a computer, so maybe I’m a bit out of the loop. I don’t know whether to be flattered or not flattered. The beanpole bit — is that good?” As if on cue, her mother reappears, and Knightley apprises her of this new information. “Apparently on the Internet I’m a sexy beanpole, tomboy beanpole.”

Smiling broadly, Sharman MacDonald, seems amused as she says slyly: “Oh, I heard about that.” Slightly flustered, Knightley peevishly responds: “You didn’t tell me that. Can you be a sexy beanpole?” Then she regains her composure. “Thank you, I guess. It could be a lot worse.”

Pirates of the Caribbean is released on August 8. Love Actually is due for release in November 2003.

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