The Teddington-born beauty (pictured in character) will portray a flirtatious Hollywood film star in the modern-day adaption of Moliere’s 17th century masterpiece, The Misanthrope.

With rehearsals starting next month, Keira will begin treading the boards on December 7 alongside Band of Brothers actor Damian Lewis

Theatre is a life-long ambition for the British star, who is the daughter of award-winning playwright and Calendar Girls actor Will Knightley, and dramatist Sharman Macdonald.

“It’s in my blood,” she says.

The show’s director Thea Sharrock has complete confidence in the 24-year-old.

“She’s absolutely ready to come into this vulnerable position – and I’m interested in working with her, to push her in a way that I don’t think she has been pushed before,” says the director, who cast Daniel Radcliffe in Equus.

It’s beyond the wildest dreams of most writers – persuading an Oscar-nominated Hollywood actress to appear in their first short film.

Let alone one such as Keira Knightley, who made £16m in 2008 and was named by Forbes as the second highest earning female in movies.

But that’s just what has happened to Rupert Friend, who has cast her in his debut, the The Continuing And Lamentable Saga Of The Suicide Brothers.

Of course it helps that the 24-year-old is his girlfriend.

Friend, who has been dating Knightley for four years, co-wrote the film with friend Tom Mison and both have starring roles.

In the film two brothers named Bourbon and Barath (Friend and Mison) go out to the shed to kill themselves everyday at two o’clock.

They try a different method each time. But each day they fail, having overlooked the presence of their frustrated fairy godmother (Knightley).

The Pirates Of The Caribbean and Atonement star undergoes a transformation for the film, in white backcombed wig and ghostly pale powdered skin.

Keira wears a bedraggled frayed dress and wings created by Oscar-winning Duchess designer Michael O’Connor.

The film also features Keira’s older brother Caleb’s soundscapes.

Yesterday Friend and Keira were arm-in-arm as they attended a London screening of the film.

Keira wore a floor-length black silk dress decorate with a painted floral design.

She has been in Somerset working on her next movie, Never Let Me Go, while Friend, 27, is currently filming The Kid, which is based on the true story of a boy in care who gets sucked into London’s criminal underworld.

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- On the set – Aprile 23

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