Keira Knightley overcame dyslexia by reading a screenplay by Emma Thompson.

The 26-year-old actress suffers from the learning disability - which affects sufferers ability to read - and when she was growing up it was having a negative impact on her studies.

But young Keira idolised 'NANNY MCPHEE' star Emma and her mother Sharman MacDonald - who worked with Emma on the 1995 film 'Sense and Sensibility' - used her daughter's adoration to inspire her to beat the condition.

The 'Atonement' star was given a copy of the 'Sense and Sensibility' script by her playwright mum to try and read and told her giving up was not an option.

Keira revealed: "I'm a huge fan of Emma Thompson, huge! "I was - am? - dyslexic and the way my mother got me over it was to say, 'If Emma Thompson couldn't read, she'd make sure she'd get over it. So you have to start reading because that's what Emma Thompson would do.' "

The actress is one of Hollywood's hottest young starlets and can next be seen in 'A Dangerous Method' - in which she plays a troubled patient and then student of psychoanalyst Carl Jung, who her character falls in love with.

Despite her big screen success, Keira has to endure criticism - especially, she claims, in her native UK - and she admits the attacks against her work do get to her on occasions.

In an interview with the March issue of Britain's GQ magazine, she said: "The Americans are generally a lot more supportive. They generally like the work I do a lot more than they do here (in the UK). It is what it is, I suppose. It could just be that I'm not to a lot of people's tastes which is fine. Well, it's not, obviously. You want to be to everyone's taste. But I think it's better to do your own thing rather than try to please everyone and just be this mushy thing in the middle. Sometimes it's like water off a duck's back and sometimes it really hurts. Then you go away and cry for an hour or so, and then you pick yourself up again."