Pirates Of The Caribbean star Keira Knightley is putting her increasing fame to work for a good cause, signing on as the "face" of the British Dyslexia Association.
The disorder is an issue close to Keira's heart, as her problems reading and writing as a child led to her being diagnosed dyslexic when she was six. It wasn't long, however, until she found ways to overcome the hurdle. "I was called stupid a lot by many lovely kids at school," she says, "and that makes you pretty determined to... figure out ways round it."
The aspiring child actress and her parents struck a deal – if Keira put her efforts into studying, she'd be able to pursue her dream career in the movies.
"I wanted to be an actress and my mum said all right – if I would come to her every day during the summer holidays with a book in my hand and a smile on my face," she recalls. "If I did that, by the end of the summer, she’d get me an agent." The budding talent was working in her first film a year later, aged seven.
Keira says she "worked hard to get the better of (dyslexia)", and hasn't allowed it to curtail her career. "I can read and write – badly – but I'm fine reading scripts," she says. "And I did leave school with starred As in my GCSEs."
Photo: © Alphapress.com
