Keira asked for an agent at three and says she overcame dyslexia and bullies. But ex-schoolfriends claim it's just an act
A SEA of flashbulbs and the admiration of millions will greet Oscar hopeful Keira Knightley when she steps on to the red carpet tomorrow night.And if she walks away with the Best Actress award, she'll take her place as the brightest young star in Hollywood.
It seems like a fairytale for a comprehensive school girl, apparently plucked from obscurity just four years ago. But it is, in fact, the final step in a meticulously planned career which began when she demanded an agent at the age of three. This sort of adulation is exactly what she had in mind when, as a single-minded schoolgirl in South-West London, she imagined her Hollywood career. And it's no surprise to former classmates that Keira has reached the top of her profession, three weeks before her 21st birthday.
Just days after she walked out of the school gates at 16, she began filming box-office hit Bend It Like Beckham, which would propel her towards stardom.
Even her yearbook at Teddington School predicts great things... Under the heading "People Most Likely To Be Famous" is the name of Knightley, who, just five years later, finds herself nominated as Best Actress at the Academy Awards for her role in Pride And Prejudice. As the pictures from the 2001 yearbook and photo albums of former classmates show, Keira was already perfecting her pout and making sure she stood out from the crowd.
But her steely determination did not win her universal approval.
Former classmate Matt Trainis says: "I am certainly not envious and had no falling out with her. But I do think she is the most arrogant and stuck-up person I have had the misfortune to meet in my life." Like some other former pupils and teachers, Trainis is angry at the way Keira has talked about her days at the school, which commands a prime position on the banks of the Thames and even has its own slipway.
"A lot of people were really annoyed because she made out that she was from some sort of rough background and went to this rough-house school," adds Trainis, 20, now a shop assistant. "She made out that she was some flower which had grown out of the dirt. Rubbish. The reason. she got into film is because t her parents have contacts in the industry.
"The truth is, she was a grade-A student who was always in the top sets at school and came from a privileged background."
In fact, she grew up in a comfortable home in leafy Teddington with her mother, playwright Sharman Macdonald and father Will Knightley, an actor who appeared in TV dramas such as Kavanagh QC, Midsomer ' Murders and Cracker.
BY the age of three, Keira was making her demands for an agent and at six she had finally got her way, after she reputedly promised to work hard to overcome her dyslexia.
She later claimed that she was bullied at school because of the condition. "I certainly wasn't one of the popular people. The dyslexia didn't help. But it's amazing what a child calling you stupid would do to make you read pretty quickly.
"I wasn't happy in school, partly because I wanted to do something else. I was just absolutely not happy being there. I was lucky enough to have an escape route."
But her former headmaster, Richard Weeks, says: "As far as I knew, there was never any question of her having dyslexia - it was never mentioned to me by any of the teachers. Everyone at the school liked Keira and I thought she liked everyone here. She was a gifted pupil academically. She was almost our highest achieving student.
"She was a very down-to-Earth pupil and she was completely accepted here.
"I have heard suggestions that we let her down and I don't know where this has come from - I'm mystified.
"It's disappointing to hear she feels she feels she had a hard time here. That's not the Keira I knew of."
Matt Trainis says that far from being let down by teachers, Keira was given the best possible treatment. "She went to a good school and I never saw her get bullied. All the teachers loved her and she had more support from them than anyone else did."
It's an impression backed up by another of her former classmates, Mark Read. "I was in her drama class and she got straight As," says the 20-year-old bank worker. "She was always a good actress and had a number of professional roles while t she was at school. She had been in some big TV show in Year 10 and then in Year 11 she was in Star Wars, so there was never any doubt about which direction she was going in.
"I am not in the least bit surprised that she has made it big," adds Mark.
"She struck me as quite determined, talented and got on well with people at school. She was quite popular."
THE upward trajectory of Keira's career began at the age of 10, when she appeared in the TV adaptation of Joanna Trollope's A Village Affair, before winning the part of Natalie Portman's double in Star Wars: Episode 1.
In one interview, Keira claimed that classmates had taunted her about her role in a teen-horror movie, The Hole. She said: "When it came out, a couple of the popular girls at school said, quite loudly: 'She's in a crap movie, so it doesn't count.' "It was rude and I was upset."
But fellow pupil Rosie Craig finds that hard to believe. "She wasn't a big star back then. Bend It... had not come out and I certainly never saw or heard of her getting a hard time at the school. Why should she? "The middle-class kids were pretty cliquey and tended to keep themselves to themselves. She had her own group."
One thing that is beyond dispute about Keira's schooldays is that she was starting to display the star quality that has seen her make it all the way to the Oscars. Pictures from her school yearbook show her grabbing the limelight and some of her classmates were so smitten, they asked her out.
One entry notes that everyone could remember "Matt Leo Dean begging Keira on his knees to go out with him".
One pupil recalls: "He was so desperate to go out with her that he didn't mind looking like an idiot going down on one knee.
"I can't remember her going out with anyone else at school. She always seemed too interested in getting somewhere else to bother with that."
But Keira can't be accused of lacking interest in the opposite sex now.
She was seen last week canoodling with fellow Brit actor Rupert Friend - her co-star from Pride And Prejudice - in the Bahamas.
Perhaps she can afford to pay more attention to her love life now that her meticulous plan to make it to the top in Hollywood has paid off.
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I don't care, I still like her, her style and her acting.
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