When she won the role of Larisa Feodorovna Guishar for a mini series of Boris Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago, she decided to quit studying and take up acting full-time. A year later, she played Juliet, a newlywed whose husband's Best Man is secretly in love with her, in Love Actually.

When auditions for Pirates Of The Caribbean were being held in London, Keira almost missed them, on account of being held up in traffic. She entered the audition hall last, which probably helped her win the role.