Kiera Knightly has had an interesting career bouncing back and forth between mainstream fare like The Pirates Of The Caribbean series and Love Actually, to more prestigious films such as Atonement and Anna Karenina. She finds herself smack dab in the middle of the "awards film" genre this year with the release of The Imitation Game, a film that will undoubtedly be one of 2015's Oscar heavy weights. The film tells the story of the legendary mathematical genius Alan Turing, and it specifically focuses on Turing's contribution to cracking the German's notorious Enigma code during the Second World War. Knightly's part is that of Joan Clarke, Turing's "love interest", although Turing's closeted homosexuality is addressed in the film. Knightly herself has only once been nominated by the Academy in 2005 for her riff on Jane Austin's Elizabeth Bennet in Pride & Prejudice. In the past, even when Knightly has starred in movies that went over fairly well with the Academy, such as Atonement, Knightley herself hasn't been swept up in the Oscar fever. This year that will most certainly not be the case as the awards behemoth that is The Imitation Game will undoubtedly gobble up multiple Academy Award nominations. While the film has received tepid-to-decent reviews among critics, it has proven much more popular among older film-goers, as illustrated by the coveted TIFF People's Choice Award the film received at this year's Toronto Film Festival. While the film's position as an awards season big-hitter all but assures Knightly of her second Oscar nomination, interestingly the chances of her actually winning are pretty slim. Her role in the film, while significant, isn't said to be as juicy as some of her competitors. While The Imitation Game may end up taking home a lot gold trophies on Oscar night, don't expect Best Supporting Actress to be one of them.
A film fanatic at a very young age, starting with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle movies and gradually moving up to more sophisticated fare, at around the age of ten he became inexplicably obsessed with all things Oscar. With the incredibly trivial power of being able to chronologically name every Best Picture winner from memory, his lifelong goal is to see every Oscar nominated film, in every major category, in the history of the Academy Awards.
