Keira Knightley TAKES TO THE HIGH SEAS IN PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN

Actress Keira Knightley is poised to become one of Britain 's most sought-after exports. After scoring a hit with international audiences in the comedy smash Bend It Like Beckham playing Juliette Paxton, a tomboy soccer star, Keira has landed the female lead in Jerry Bruckheimer's latest summer überfilm, Pirates of the Caribbean : The Curse of the Black Pearl. Playing opposite veteran stars such as Johnny Depp, Geoffrey Rush, and Jonathan Pryce, Keira not only holds her own, but commands the screen with a presence that hasn't been seen in many a moon.

Coming by her talent naturally, Keira was born  in London to Sharman Macdonald, an award-winning playwright whose works include "The Winter Guest" (which was filmed by actor/director Alan Rickman in 1997) and "When I Was a Girl I Used to Scream and Shout," and Will Knightley, a renowned stage actor. After literally being raised backstage and on sets, it's little wonder that the Knightleys found their precocious six-year-old daughter declaring that she wanted to trod the boards for a living. After appearing in several independent British films and television productions, Keira landed her first big film with a brief turn in Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, playing Sabé, Decoy Queen to Natalie Portman's Queen Amidala. Keira also appeared in the British television miniseries of Boris Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago, playing the role of Lara, which made Julie Christie famous in the original 1965 production. Having completed the romantic comedy Love Actually earlier this year, Keira is now gearing up for her latest acting challenge: playing Queen Guinevere to Clive Owen's King Arthur, a revisionist look at the Arthurian legend, directed by Antoine Fuqua and produced by Bruckheimer. It lenses in Ireland later this year.

Keira Knightley sat down recently with Venice to talk about her quite remarkable rising career in show business.

Venice : This is another very physical role for you, appropriate after your work in Bend it Like Beckham.Keira Knightley: It's funny because I'm a very, very, very lazy person, so it's really odd that they keep casting me in these very athletic roles. Maybe it's because I'm young and thin that [they think] I must be very fit, which is completely not the case. I just have good genes. It's always rather difficult when they ask me to run around because I tend to wheeze a lot and fall down in a faint! [laughs]

Were you a tomboy growing up?
Oh, very much so, and I used to play a lot of soccer when I was growing up. In fact, I was very sporty up until about 12, when I became a complete girly-girl. Then I had to switch back to being a tomboy recently. But I'm getting fit again for my latest role (in King Arthur). They've given me personal trainers, and boxing coaches. It's very strange.

Wait a minute, Guinevere, the ultimate girly-girl, is going to be boxing?
Not exactly boxing, but defending herself. Fighting, archery, that sort of thing.

That should be interesting. Have you seen John Boorman's Excalibur (1981) as part of your research?
Oh, of course! I've watched all the (Arthurian) films. This one is going to be really amazing. It's kind of a different take on the whole legend. They're trying to take a lot of the myth out of it with this version. There's a theory that King Arthur was actually a Roman general called Arterius Rex. They've found a grave of his in Cornwall that seems to indicate that. It's been fascinating doing the research on it. I love history anyway, so it's been really fun.

Did you do a lot of your own stunt work in Pirates?
Some. I had a great stunt girl called Sonya, who's fantastic. I did the walking the plank and jumping off, but the falling off the cliff wasn't me, which I'm sure you're surprised to hear! [laughs]

What about "the big bounce" scene? That had to have been the stunt girl.
No! Some of that was me! Not the bit going 40 feet up in the air, but I did the bit when she first sees all the skeletons and falls back into the hole, which was about two feet. I did that. But then Sonya came in and did a 15 foot drop! I was like, "Let's let the professionals do this, thank you!"

You got to work with an amazing cast. Let's start with talking about Johnny.
I think he's one of the most talented actors around, no question. It was just a privilege working with him. He's such a nice guy, totally cool, a bit of a dude. We had a real giggle. It was amazing, and just such an amazing experience seeing someone like that work. I kept thinking, 'Well, maybe I can steal something from him, how he and Geoffrey do it.' They just make it look so bloody easy. They walk on, joke, joke, joke, joke, joke, do it. And you go, 'But where did it come from?!' and I haven't got a clue.

Was Jonathan Pryce like that as well?
I love Jonathan! We had such a laugh. He actually worked with my dad before, so that kind of shocked him. I had maybe the most fun with him and Jack Davenport, because both have very English senses of humor, which can be very cruel, and Jonathan has a very cruel eyebrow, so you know he's displeased when he sort of raises it. [laughs] Jonathan was always getting me and Jack into trouble because he'd say something outrageous and just keep a completely straight face, and of course Jack and I would just be dying with laughter! Gore (Verbinski) would be like "What are you doing?! You've got to concentrate!" 'We can't! Tell him to stop it!' He's awful, really awful, but I love him.

How about Orlando, who's the only other cast member who's close to your age?
Oh, a sweetheart. We'd met a couple of times before, because we'd always auditioned together, but either he didn't get the part, or I didn't, so we'd never had the opportunity to work together before. We only have about four scenes together in the film, so I don't feel like I've gotten to know him as well as the others.

Your parents are both well-known performers in the UK , your father as an actor and your mother as a writer. Obviously, growing up in that world rubbed off on you.
Completely. It's funny, because growing up around it as a kid, I never really took my parents' work seriously because I just saw them as Mum and Dad. Then a couple months ago she let me read this play she won a lot of awards for called "When I Was a Girl I Used to Scream and Shout," which is the reason I was born. She never let me read it prior to that time, and I was just blown away by it, and found myself saying, 'Wow, I've been living with a seriously talented woman all these years, and I never knew it.' It's weird when you see your parents that way, in a totally different light. They're both pretty cool. [laughs]

And as you get older, they'll get cooler.
Oh yeah, they are. [laughs] Although I definitely went through a stage when I didn't feel that way!

Tell us some more about how your parents' lives fueled your desire to become an actress.
They were very, very wary about my doing it. I'm dyslexic and I wasn't working in school at all. I couldn't read a word. So my mum said, "If you come to me at the end of every day during the summer with a book in your hand and a smile on your face, at the end of it we'll get you an agent." She didn't think I'd do it, but I did! She felt so guilty that she'd made her six-year-old daughter work so hard all during the summer holidays that she got me the agent and I was allowed to work during summer holidays, but I couldn't miss any school. Also, I wasn't allowed to work if my grades started slipping, so it was a reason to keep my grades high at school as well.

How did you overcome the dyslexia?
There are ways of overcoming it. It's just a matter of finding the root, or path, of the problem. It's a bit like doing a cryptic crossword, you have to know the shortcuts. The truth about it is you have to be extremely driven. You have to work ten times harder than somebody without it, and I couldn't bear the idea of being thought of as stupid. So when I left school, I was pretty much a straight-A student. But I hated [being dyslexic]. Just hated it. I still can't spell or sight read to save my life, but I did get through it, with a lot of help.

Is university in your future?
At some point I definitely will. I was always very snobbish about education. As far as I was concerned, you were a failure if you didn't go to university. You were a failure if you didn't get a first-class degree, in my eyes! [laughs] It's very ironic, isn't it? Now I don't believe that you need some letters after your name to prove that you're intelligent, and you don't have to stop learning just because you don't go to school. The only thing unacceptable to me, and unacceptable to my family, would be apathy. So I think I will go back to college, but the normal route most likely won't be for me.

What was the experience of being in Star Wars Episode One ?
I hate to say it, but I was only on it for about three weeks. I have two memories. One was when I fell off the back of a golf buggy that Ewan McGregor was on, and to this day, I can't look at him without being embarrassed, because all I was wearing was a bathrobe, some tights, and some knickers, and I literally went flying with my legs over my head and everything on display! [laughs] I've met him a number of times since, and he doesn't even remember! I also remember how uncomfortable it was, because those costumes are so difficult. But it was a very valuable experience because I was really sort of chucked into the deep end and forced to work on this epic scale film with blue screen, and green screen, and all that. It's quite a skill to be able to act against those things, when there's nothing really there. My hat goes off to all those guys who had big parts and were acting opposite a blue or green screen. You have to really concentrate.

This is your first really big Hollywood production. You don't get much bigger than a Jerry Bruckheimer film in the States. This film is based on a theme park ride, and you yourself are now on a ride, so to speak, with this whirlwind publicity tour, and premieres, and being thrust into the spotlight on a grand scale. What's this like for you, at your young age?
It's all a tiny bit crazy. The whole celebrity aspect of this job is never what I aspired to be. It's totally about the work. You really see the business aspect of it all when you come out to Hollywood , whereas, in Europe it's more like a community. So that's a huge wakeup call. But that being said, I'm going to be spending the next week and a half talking about myself? Well, that's great, I'm an actress aren't I? [laughs] That's our favorite pastime! And I get to stay in this huge hotel suite, so yeah, it's very cool. Ask me the same question at the end of the week and I might be saying, 'Stop! I can't take it anymore!' But since we've just started, I'm having a lovely time.

Have you gone on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride yet?
Yes, I was a bit cheeky. I got them to give me free passes into Disneyland and I went three or four times with my entire family! [laughs] So I've been on it about three or four times now, all in the name of research, of course! My character is nowhere in the ride, but that's fine! [laughs]

That ride has probably been the most popular attraction, consistently, at Disneyland since it opened.
Yeah, and being from Britain , I didn't really know anything about it growing up. I'd been to Disneyland once when I was very little, but I don't really remember it. But you talk to so many people whose memories of their childhood are all based on that ride! It's quite remarkable.

The oddsmakers are all predicting that you're going to be a huge star after this film hits, and we at Venice agree. When you have the kind of freedom that's afforded to most stars, to pick and choose what sort of projects you do, what will your choices be?
I'd like to go in as many different directions as possible, but I'd really like to focus on the theater, I think. That's what my parents have spent their lives doing, so I'm desperate to do theater.

Who're your favorite playwrights?
Oh, that's a good question! [pause] Oh, I'm such a girl. I love Oscar Wilde. He's so clever. And Jean-Paul Sartre, because I love "The Flies."

We have to talk about Bend It Like Beckham. It was a sleeper hit here and in the UK. 
It was number one for three weeks in the UK . When we were doing it, we certainly weren't expecting it to go to number one, but we were expecting it to be quite successful simply because it had "Beckham" in the title. He's bigger than the royal family. Nobody's really interested in them anymore, it's all David Beckham and Posh Spice. The fact that it's a success in America is so gratifying because it means that the film's good, and made us all so proud to be a part of it. It's a lovely film and it makes everybody smile, which I think is one of the most important things you can do for an audience.