Keira Knightley's skin woes

Her good looks and acting talents have made her one of Britain's most successful young film stars.

But as her latest movie premiered in London yesterday, Keira Knightley revealed her supposed natural beauty is largely thanks to the airbrush.
The 20-year-old actress, who stars as Elizabeth Bennet in the latest version of Pride and Prejudice, said she was an acne sufferer whose image in pictures was nothing like the real thing.

"Airbrushing is sort of nice because I always get acne, so it's all incredibly nice when they take it out digitally," she said in a radio interview. "I wish they could do that for me in my everyday life."



She admitted such digital wizardry did present an unattainable role model to her young fans.

"If you've got an image like that, and you're presenting it as reality, then I'm definitely not too comfortable with that," she said.

"It is impossible to attain that, so if that's the image you're presenting and saying this is what you should look like, then I don't think that's okay because nobody can look like that."
Knightley came to prominence three years ago in Bend It Like Beckham and went on to appear in Love Actually and Pirates of the Caribbean. Such was the success of Pirates she is now filming two sequels with co-stars Johnny Depp and Orlando Bloom.

Knightley arrived at the premiere of Pride and Prejudice, which is released in Australia on October 20, wearing a lilac Matthew Williamson emperor line dress.

Her normally short hair was replaced by a full head of auburn extensions she had put in while she films the Pirates sequels.

"They are actually the same extensions from the first movie, which I find slightly odd, but at least they've been washed," she said.