Knightley's Dyslexic Trick

British actress Keira Knightley cleverly used her dyslexic condition to ensure she got an acting agent when she was only six.

The BEND IT LIKE BECKHAM star found it very difficult to learn to read because of her dyslexia - and the only way her parents could encourage her to learn was to use her desire to perform as an incentive.

Keira explains, "I'm dyslexic and when I was six my parents realised I couldn't read and had been fooling everyone. The only way my mum could get me to work at my reading was if she promised to get me an agent.

"She said to me, 'If you come to me with a book in your hand and a smile on your face every single day during the summer holidays, then at the end of it I will get you an agent.' And she felt so guilty at having made her six-year-old daughter do this that she had to get me an agent at the end of it!"

However, Knightley, who stars alongside Johnny Depp in new film PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN, insists her reading problems have not affected her ability to learn her lines, and adds, "I can learn them fine. It's just reading them in the first place that is the problem."