10 things we learned from Anna Maxwell Martin's Desert Island Discs
Anna Maxwell Martin has been called ‘the most un-typecast actor in Britain’, known as much for her roles in gritty dramas like Line of Duty as for hit comedies like Motherland.
From a childhood spent belting out Whitney Houston songs with a pudding bowl haircut, she has gone on to win two BAFTAs and an Emmy, as well as becoming a dedicated campaigner for vulnerable children and families. In an interview full of laughter, and a few tears, Anna tells Lauren Laverne about how grief, love and silliness have shaped her.
Here are 10 things we learned from her Desert Island Discs…
1. Her greatest acting hero is Julie Walters, and she still can't believe she got to work with her
Throughout her career, Anna has played a huge variety of roles, from comedy to hard-hitting drama, and she is very clear about her role model for this range: “Julie Walters is my apex predator,” she tells Lauren. “I do all the work, and I prepare and I research, and I feel I know my character better than anybody when I get onto the set, but then I want to let go of all that and just listen. I think that's what I saw Julie doing.”
They eventually appeared together on screen and, while waiting for Anne Hathaway to finish shooting a scene, not only did Anna and Julie immediately start giggling, “we got told off”. Anna was delighted.
Her first disc, I Love to Boogie by T. Rex, is a tribute to Julie and her effortless boogying in the film Billy Elliott.
2. Both her parents were scientists
Anna’s dad Ivan was managing director of a pharmaceutical company, and her mother Rosalind had worked in scientific research. They met at a Scottish Presbyterian church in Chelsea, bonded over science and faith, and eventually settled in Beverley in east Yorkshire. Rosalind had wanted to be a forensic pathologist. “That wasn't really possible at that time,” Anna says, “but she would've been absolutely brilliant.” She describes her mum as very practical, very together, with a sharp sense of humour. “You can be really silly with my mum.”
3. Her dad was her greatest cheerleader
Ivan shaped Anna’s life profoundly. “For me, he's like the spine that holds you up,” she says. “He shaped so much about how I approach the world.” What he did above all else was believe in her, even when she explained to her scientist parents that she wanted to be an actor. “He never ever questioned it.”
When Anna got her first professional job straight out of drama school her dad came to see her. He died the day after the final night of the run. “He’d been really poorly, but I was very in denial about that.” It took Anna a long time to process the trauma of that time, and she was eventually diagnosed with PTSD in her late thirties. But the legacy her dad left, she says, has lasted. “That amount of unequivocal cheerleading just filled up the tank and it sustained me throughout my life.”
4. She has always wanted to perform and has absolutely no idea why
Growing up in a cul-de-sac in east Yorkshire, Anna would put on plays with the neighbourhood children, make up songs with her brother, and perform in every school production she could find. “I don't think of it as performing. I think I'm quite shy. I think it was sort of escaping a bit.”
She was also a member of a local singing troupe and remembers entering a singing competition which required a trip down to London. “I sang a song called London is London, dressed as a pearly queen,” she tells Lauren, complete with Cockney accent. She made it to the final but was pipped to the post by a young girl singing opera. She remains irked to this day. “I thought, ‘you should be in a different competition, love,’” Anna laughs. “This is a competition for your basic singer, not an opera singer!”
5. As a child, she was a ‘happy dweeb’ and a ‘drama queen’
I’m quite an intense person, but I am a bit of a fish swimming round the bowl. So, I feel things deeply and then I just move on and forget.Anna considers how she was shaped by her childhood.
With her pudding bowl haircut and medical eyepatch to correct a squint, Anna thinks of her childhood self as “such a happy dweeb”. But she was also, she says, anxious, and highly strung, “feeling things very intensely” and “pretty driven”.
“I was quite resilient,” she reflects. “I’m quite an intense person, but I am a bit of a fish swimming round the bowl. So, I feel things deeply and then I just move on and forget.”
6. Her acting career took off spectacularly, though she struggled to enjoy the success
Months after leaving drama school, Anna was performing at the National Theatre. Soon afterwards she won her first BAFTA for playing Esther in the BBC adaptation of Bleak House. But even though her professional life was going well, she was struggling in her personal life. “I don't think I did enjoy it. I was worried about the next thing.” She was also, in those early years, living with unprocessed grief for her father. “I was dealing with a bit of, it is quite extreme to say, agoraphobia. But a little bit of that, and some anxiety.”
7. Her Motherland audition found her at her absolute worst (but she got the job anyway)
By the time she auditioned for Motherland in 2016, Anna had two BAFTAs. But she was not, she makes clear, in a gracious frame of mind. “I said to my agent, ‘do I have to audition? I've heard other people aren't auditioning. They're just getting offered things.’ And he said, ‘you haven't done any comedy… of course you’re going to go in and audition.’”
She went in resentfully and was, “pretty cross in the room… I was pretty terse.” They phoned her agents afterwards who explained that they had liked her. “I said, ‘good, is it an offer?’ He said, ‘well, actually, they'd like to meet you again.’ I went, ‘Nope. Why do they want to meet me again?’ He went, ‘they'd like to meet you again because they're a bit scared of you.’”
She got the part, and looking back is mortified by her behaviour. “I got on set and I apologised profusely.”
8. Losing her husband Roger left a gap that nothing can fill
I think I do okay as a mum... but there's just things that Roger did better. Things that he did that I can't do.Anna reflects on the loss of her husband.
Roger Michell, who directed Notting Hill and later became Anna’s husband and the father of her two daughters, died suddenly of a heart attack in 2021. They had split up by then, but the loss was very difficult to process. “I think I do okay as a mum,” she says, “but there's just things that Roger did better. Things that he did that I can't do. The things that the girls need from him, and he is not here.”
It was a bruising time for Anna and her family, not just living with grief, but dealing with the practical and financial implications. “In the initial stages, the practical dominates. You’ve got to make a living, pay the bills, support your family. I’m not going to over-egg that because we were in a very fortunate position.” One of the hardest things has been seeing the impact on her children. “That’s really hard for me to watch, but even harder for them to live.”
But she marvels at their resilience and their humour. “Their ability to find joy and silliness in life is off the chain really. They are amazing.”
9. She would love to retrain as a teaching assistant one day
Fighting for her younger daughter's needs in the SEND [special educational needs and disabilities] system was, in Anna’s words, “head-banging, mental-making, exhausting, soul-destroying.” She has become an advocate for children being supported at the point of need. “All our children should feel valued and feel seen and we shouldn't have thousands of children othered and excluded from school and written off.”
One day, she tells Lauren, she would like to do something more direct. “I'd love to retrain as a TA [teaching assistant]. I'd love to mentor young people. They probably wouldn't want me. But it would feel like it had much more value.”
10. She initially thought her boyfriend Dickie was boring
Anna’s final disc is Tell Him by Lauryn Hill, dedicated to her partner Dickie, a camera operator she met on set. The relationship did not begin well. “We had a lovely date and then it went downhill and I thought he was pretty boring. He wanted to do a lot of talking and I didn't have a massive amount of time for talking. I wanted to do more doing!” She lets out a huge laugh. “He’s a handsome guy. What can I say?”
What she found over time, though, was something she hadn't known she was missing. “He shows up every single day unequivocally with love and kindness and safety. I lost my cheerleader when I was 24 and I feel in Dickie, I've got it back.”
