Mini biography
The daughter of actor Will Knightley and playwright Sharman Macdonald. After she requested an agent at the age of three, her parents allowed her to work on productions in her summer holidays. Her first role was at the age of 9, in Moira Armstrong’s A Village Affair (1994). However, Knightley’s first high profile role came in 1999, as Sabe, Decoy Queen to Natalie Portman’s Queen Amidala in Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace (1999). Since then she has completed an impressive array of films including The Hole (2001), but is probably best known for her role of tomboy footballer Jules Paxton in Gurinder Chadha’s Bend It Like Beckham (2002).