Keira is Anna

Two of cinema's greatest beauties have played her. Now it's time for Keira Knightley to follow in the footsteps of Greta Garbo (1935) and Vivien Leigh (1948) (both pictured below in the role) to portray one of literature's most enduring tragic heroines, Anna Karenina.

For this latest version of Tolstoy's epically romantic novel, which has just started shooting in the UK and Russia, Knightley is re-united with director Joe Wright with whom she made Pride & Prejudice and Atonement.

Playing the two men in her late 19th Century life are Jude Law, as Count Karenin, and Aaron Johnson, as Count Vronsky. The cast also includes Kelly Macdonald, Matthew Macfadyen and Emily Watson.