Skandar Keynes

Early life

Keynes was born in Camden, London,. His mother is Zelfa Hourani and his father is author Randal Keynes. He has an older sister, Soumaya Anne Keynes (born August 1989), who has appeared in various productions for BBC Radio 4 and now works as an economist at the Institute for Fiscal Studies.

Ancestry

On his father's side, Keynes is of English descent, and is the grandson of physiologist Richard Keynes, the nephew of two Cambridge professors, the historian Simon Keynes, and the neuroscientist Roger Keynes, the cousin of Catholic writer and apologist Laura 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.

On his mother's side, Keynes is of Lebanese, Persian and Turkish descent. (The nickname Skandar is Pashto for the Greek name "Alexander", Pashto being an Iranic language like Persian, or is short for "Eskander," an Arabic variant.) Lebanese nationality law states that citizenship is passed on patrilineally, so Keynes is legally a foreigner in the country he considers his second home. His maternal grandparents were Furugh Afnan and Cecil Fadlo Hourani, who was an advisor to the late Tunisian president Habib Bourguiba. The Hourani family were immigrants to Manchester from Marjeyoun in southern Lebanon. Cecil's two brothers were Albert, a major historian of the Middle East, and George, philosopher, historian, and classicist. Furugh Afnan was the great-granddaughter of Bahá'u'lláh, founder of the Bahá'í Faith, making Skandar a great great great grandson of Baha'u'llah.

Career

Keynes auditioned for the role of Edmund Pevensie in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe at the same time as he auditioned for the role of Simon Brown in Nanny McPhee, winning the former while losing the latter to Thomas Sangster. His voice changed, due to puberty, during the filming of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, so the director used his sister Soumaya to voice some of his lines in the movie.

He reprised his role as Edmund in Prince Caspian, released 16 May 2008. Keynes said he enjoyed the action-oriented stuntwork in the film but bruised his heel during a stunt with a horse. When he later had to run in the same scene, he did so while on pain medication and worried it was noticeable.

He starred again as Edmund 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. In preparation for this film, Keynes studied to earn his Professional Association of Diving Instructors license for underwater scenes.

Keynes contributed his voice in 2014 to the audio project, In Freedom's Cause as Sir Allan Kerr, which would be the final project of his official acting career.

In 2016, Keynes announced that he is no longer pursuing a career in acting.

Skandar Keynes is now a parliamentary adviser to Crispin Blunt, MP.

Personal life

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 from 2005. There he wrote as a film critic for the review section of The Citizen, the City of London School weekly school newspaper. 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 was listed as one of Business Insider's "16 Incredibly Impressive Students At Cambridge University". Keynes received his degree in Middle Eastern Studies in 2014.

He and his family have visited Marjeyoun since he was a child. "We've been coming every year to Lebanon and visiting Marjeyoun despite the political situation. I was here in 1996 during Operation Grapes of Wrath. I was four at the time and I had no concept that it was war," Keynes told a reporter. "I remember when the gravity of the situation dawned on me. It was during the 2006 July war, I was 14 then… but it didn't really shake my view of Lebanon as effectively a second home, a place where I come to and I have family." Keynes explains that he is cognizant of the political situation:

"And I understand that in part the law that a mother cannot pass her nationality to her children is tied up with the Palestinian issue, and sometimes I wonder who I am to complain when there are people who have been born and brought up in Lebanon, who speak Arabic better than I ever will and can't get Lebanese citizenship... I would like to see the law changed and would like to be able to be considered Lebanese by the Lebanese government. When I arrive at the airport, I would like to show a Lebanese passport, I would like to go to my [family's] house without having to get permission, but part of me feels that I have to put my hands up in the air and say, 'Well, what I want is not what I'm going to get,' and I don't know how or to what extent I should resign myself to the fact that I'm not Lebanese as far as they are concerned."