11 Roles Keira Knightley Played Before Netflix’s Black Doves

Keira Knightley is back in action in the newest season of Netflix’s action thriller Black Doves.

Back in 2024, the British star earned nominations at the Golden Globes and Critics’ Choice Awards for her work as Helen, the wife of a leading politician who is harbouring a secret that she’s actually a member of a secret government agency.

Two years later, she’s returned to the role alongside co-stars Ben Whishaw and Sarah Lancashire for a second season of Black Doves, that’s now streaming on Netflix.

Keira, of course, is already one of the most recognisable faces in the British acting world, and has been for the last 30 years.

After shooting to fame in projects like Bend It Like Beckham, Love Actually and the Pirates Of The Caribbean series, Keira went on to earn praise for her work in the likes of Pride & Prejudice and Atonement.

But with so many impressive performances under her belt, it’s natural that a few of the Oscar nominee’s past projects might have slipped your mind.

With that in mind, we’ve rounded up 11 past Keira Knightley roles you may well have forgotten all about…

For many years, it was a rite of passage for any British actor on the come-up to rack up an appearance in serial police or hospital dramas like The Bill, Casualty or Doctors.

Back in 1995, Keira made one of her first ever on-screen appearances in an episode of The Bill, aged just 10.

The future Oscar nominee played Sheena Rose, a young girl with a troubled background who commits a robbery.

Before she was leading films and TV shows herself, Keira played a minor role in a TV adaptation of Oliver Twist, joining Julie Walters as Mrs Mann, Andy Serkis as Bill Sykes, Robert Lindsay as Fagin and child actor Sam Smith (no, not that one) in the title role.

Keira played Rose Maylie, the character who eventually turns out to be Oliver Twist’s long-lost relative, in the TV series.

While watching Black Doves, we couldn’t help remarking on Keira’s resemblance to Natalie Portman – so it’s interesting that in her second ever big-screen role, the British performer starred as a handmaiden to Padmé (she was actually chosen for the role because of how much she looked like Natalie).

“I mean, I was 12. I literally don’t remember,” she told Total Film when asked about her Star Wars experience. “I remember the headdress being so heavy, it gave me a headache. I really remember the headache from one of the headdresses.

“And I remember being in the background for such a long time that I’d actually fallen asleep. I was just sitting in a chair, and I was in the background, but I couldn’t keep my eyes open. I really remember that. But apart from that, I don’t remember anything else about it.”

By 2004, Keira was a bona fide film star thanks to roles in Bend It Like Beckham, Love Actually and Pirates Of The Caribbean.

Around this time, she was cast as Guinevere, the wife of Clive Owen’s character, in the epic adventure movie King Arthur – a daunting task for any young actor, but especially for one who was still a teenager when shooting was taking place.

Although the film itself was panned, Keira’s performance – for which she needed to study boxing, archery, and horse riding – was largely praised.

Keira shared the screen with Sienna Miller, Cillian Murphy, Matthew Rhys and, for some reason, Lisa Stansfield in the romance drama The Edge Of Love.

What’s noteworthy about this film is that it was actually written by Keira’s mum, the screenwriter and performer Sharman Macdonald.

In Seeking A Friend For The End Of The World, Keira plays a young woman who finds herself an unlikely confidant in Steve Carell, when they form a friendship after being thrust together in the throes of – as the name suggests – an apocalypse.

The disaster movie also featured appearances from The White Lotus’ Connie Britton, Nobody Wants This star Adam Brody and three-time Emmy winner Martin Sheen.

It was also the directorial debut of Lorene Scafaria, who would go on to helm Hustlers and pivotal episodes of the TV drama Succession.

Heading into the mid-2010s, Keira really started stepping out of the box when it came to her choice of projects, sharing the screen with Chloë Grace Moretz in Laggies.

In this coming-of-age drama with a twist, the British star plays a woman struggling with a quarter-life crisis after her long-term boyfriend proposes, and winds up falling in with a group of teenagers.

Due to confusion over its title, you might know this film as Say When, which was its name here in the UK.

Keira joined an all-star cast in Collateral Beauty, which centres around a man who becomes a recluse after experiencing a personal tragedy, and gets a surprise when his letters to Death, Love and Time yield responses.

Will Smith plays the central character, while Keira appears as a young actor hired to play “Love” alongside a cast that also includes Kate Winslet, Edward Norton, Dame Helen Mirren, Naomie Harris and Ann Dowd.

Of course, Keira’s performance as Elizabeth Swann in Pirates Of The Caribbean is one of her career-defining roles, and she went on to play the character in the first three instalments in the Disney franchise.

While the fourth movie overhauled the cast somewhat, Keira surprised fans when she made a brief cameo in the fifth instalment, Dead Men Tell No Tales, albeit in a non-speaking role, which reunited her with former co-star Orlando Bloom.

Remember that time in the mid-2010s when Disney started chucking out all those fantastical, CGI-heavy, live-action movies? A Wrinkle In Time, Oz The Great And Powerful, Tomorrowland, that sort of thing?

Well, among them was this ambitious movie, adapted from E. T. A. Hoffmann’s short story and the Tchaikovsky ballad that it inspired.

Keira, as you can probably tell from the photo above, played the Sugar Plum Fairy, leading a cast that also included Mackenzie Foy, Richard E Grant, Morgan Freeman, Dame Helen Mirren and, in a more minor role, comedian Jack Whitehall.

Between Love Actually, The Nutcracker and, more recently, Black Doves, Keira certainly loves a Christmas film, doesn’t she? And, as we’ve already established, she’s also prone to a disaster movie.

Silent Night combined the two, pairing her with Matthew Goode in this black comedy about a group of grown-up school friends reuniting for one night in the lead-up to an apocalypse.

Black Doves is now streaming on Netflix.