PRIDE AND PREJUDICE

Mocked for her weight, talent and 'poshness', a decade of fame for Keira Knightley has been trial by media. As 'Black Doves' hits TV, Katie Rosseinsky says enough is enough

- Katie Rosseinsky

In one of Love Actually's most memorable scenes, Keira Knightley's character Juliet gazes at a video from her wedding.

Her lovely face has been captured in an unsettling close-up by her new husband's best friend, the equally unsettling Mark, played by Andrew Lincoln. "I look quite pretty," she trills, a manic pixie posh girl slowly being engulfed by a huge baker boy cap. That line, delivered when Knightley was just 18, seemed to set the tenor for how she would be perceived by her viewing public thereafter. Beautiful, but very aware of it. A touch selfsatisfied. Poised to a frankly annoying extent.

More than 20 years on, Knightley is playing another photogenic wife in another Christmas-set ensemble piece. In the Netflix series Black Doves, the now 39-year-old plays Helen, who is married to (and cheating on) a high-ranking politician. So far, so Richard Curtis. Until we learn that Helen is a spy in deep cover and part of an international espionage ring – and her double life is about to catch up with her in a big way.

Underneath her elegant appearance – all fancy tonal knitwear and the sort of tousled updos that are designed to look effortless but require hours of wrangling in front of the mirror – she is furious, funny and fascinating, She’s also alarmingly good at repurposing her fancy kitchen implements to ward off assassins. Black Doves is just the latest in a string of very different projects inviting us to reconsider the image of Knightley that we’ve been carrying around in our heads since the early Noughties – and to look back at the criticism and vitriol that was directed at the young actor as a result.