World Artist: Skandar Keynes

Friday, February 4, 2011

Skandar Keynes

Skandar Keynes (born Alexander Amin Caspar Keynes; 5 September 1991) is a British actor. He is best known for starring as Edmund Pevensie in The Chronicles of Narnia film series. He has appeared in all three installments, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Prince Caspian and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, which was released on December 10, 2010.Keynes was born in London, the son of Zelfa Hourani and author Randal Keynes. He has an older sister, Soumaya Keynes (born 1989), who has appeared in various productions for BBC Radio 4. His maternal grandparents were Furugh Afnan and Cecil Fadlo Hourani, who was an advisor to the late Tunisian president Habib Bourguiba, as well as an author; Cecil Hourani is also the brother of Albert Hourani, a major historian of the Middle East. The Hourani family were immigrants to England from Marjeyoun in southern Lebanon.

On his father's side, Keynes is the grandson of physiologist Richard Keynes, the nephew of historian and Cambridge professor Simon Keynes, and the great-great-nephew of economist John Maynard Keynes. His great-great-great-grandfather was naturalist Charles Darwin. Keynes' great-grandparents were Nobel Prize laureate Edgar Adrian, 1st Baron Adrian and Hester Adrian, Baroness Adrian. Keynes had stated that he is an atheist. Keynes attended the Anna Scher Theatre School from 2000 to 2005, having attended Thornhill Primary school from 1996-2002. He attended the all-boys City of London School. He sat his GCSEs in May and June 2008 and started Sixth Form and his first year of his A-level studies the following September. He studied biology, chemistry, maths, further maths and history at A-level. In October 2010 he began his degree in Arabic and Middle Eastern History at Pembroke College, Cambridge. He currently writes as a film critic for the review section of The Citizen, the City of London School weekly school newspaper. He is a fan of English football club Arsenal. Keynes currently resides in Highbury, London. He auditioned for The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe at the same time as he auditioned for the role of Simon Brown in Nanny McPhee, but lost the role to Thomas Sangster. His voice deepened during the filming of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, leaving his sister Soumaya to voice some of his lines. He starred in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, the third installment of The Chronicles of Narnia film series. Filming began in July 2009, and finished in December of the same year. The film was released on 10 December 2010 in Britain and the US.