The British actress, who has been nominated for an Oscar, a Golden Globe and a Bafta for her role in The Imitation Game, revealed that she was meant to be named Kiera Ivanova but her mother got the spelling wrong.

"I was meant to be named ‘Kiera’, after a Russian ice skater who was on the TV one day,” she told Elle magazine.

"My dad fancied her and nicked her name for me. But it was my mum who went to register my birth, and she accidentally spelled ‘ei’ instead of ‘ie’ because my mum’s crap at spelling.”

Knightley added: "Apparently, when she came back he said: ‘What the F***? You’ve spelt her name wrong!’

What were they going to do, though? Once it’s on the piece of paper, it’s on the piece of paper. And that’s me. A spelling error.”

Kiera Ivanova was born in 1963 in Moscow, and her career as a figure skater peaked in the 1980s, winning medals at the 1984 Olympic Games in Sarajevo and the World Figure Skating Championships in Tokyo the following year.

In 2001, her body was discovered by neighbours in her Moscow apartment. She had been stabbed to death, aged just 38.

Knightley revealed that she "hated" school, adding: "I’ve always hated the idea that you should be wearing this or that, because it makes me feel like I’m getting everything wrong.

"I hated it at school, and I don’t want it as an adult. If you want to wear a f***ing flowerpot on your head and that makes you happy, then wear a f*cking flowerpot on your head."

Knightley described Joan Clarke, the cryptanalyst she played in The Imitation Game is "an inspiration".

"It wasn’t a question of screaming and shouting and trying to knock walls down; it was more recognising that, to get into a room nobody wanted you in, people had to like you, like being around you and enjoy you being part of the process," Knightley said.

See Keira Knightley’s full photo shoot and interview in the March issue of ELLE, on sale January 29, 2015.

(telegraph.co.uk)