Skandar Keynes

Skandar Keynes was born as Alexander Amin Casper Keynes on 5 September 1991 in London Borough of Camden, London, England, the UK. His father is author Randal Keynes and his mother is Zelfa Hourani. Keynes has an elder sister whose name is Soumaya.

From 1996 to 2002, he studied at Thornhill Primary School. He attended the Anna Scher Theatre School from 2000 to 2005. Keynes then attended City of London School from 2005. Skandar Keynes used to write film reviews for the weekly school newspaper, ‘The Citizen.’ He then went on to study at Pembroke College, Cambridge, earning his degree in Middle Eastern Studies in 2014.

Skandar Keynes first appeared on TV in 2001 when he was cast in the role of Waif in the documentary ‘Queen Victoria Died in 1901 and is Still Alive Today’. He then appeared in the TV movie ‘Ferrari’. He next auditioned for the role of Edmund Pevensie in ‘The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe’. Although Keynes got the role, his voice changed during the filming of the movie so the director used his sister’s voice for some of his lines in the flick.

In 2008, the actor reprised his role as Edmund Pevensie in ‘Prince Caspian.’ Two years later, he again played the same role in the third installment of the movie series, ‘The Voyage of the Dawn Treader’. He then contributed his voice to the audio drama ‘The Extraordinary Adventures of G.A. Henty: In Freedom's Cause‘. This role marked the end of Keynes’ acting career as he finally announced in 2016 that he is no longer pursuing a career in acting. After this, he began serving as the parliamentary adviser to Crispin Blunt, MP.

Skandar Keynes is half-British, one-quarter-Lebanese, one-eighth-Turkish and one-eighth-Persian. On his father's side, he is the grandson of the famous physiologist Richard Keynes, the cousin of writer apologist Laura Keynes, nephew of two Cambridge professors, the neuroscientist Roger Keynes and the historian Simon Keynes, and the great-great-nephew of the renowned economist John Maynard Keynes. Keynes’ great-great-great-grandfather was the biologist Charles Darwin who descended from Thomas Howard (uncle to both Queen Catherine Howard and Queen Anne Boleyn), thus making him distantly related to King Edward I and Queen Elizabeth I.

On his mother's side, he is the grandson of Cecil Fadlo Hourani and Furugh Afnan. Cecil Fadlo Hourani was an advisor to the then-Tunisian president Habib Bourguiba. Furugh Afnan was the great-granddaughter of the founder of the Bahá'í Faith, Bahá'u'lláh, thus making Keynes the great-great-great grandson of Baha'u'llah.