Anna Maxwell Martin looks back: I was bullied a little bit, but it didn't affect me because I was a happy weirdo'

"I am five and having my picture taken at school. On my eye is a medical patch. That's what they did to you in the 1980s if you had a squint. My dad cut my hair using a bowl, which is why it is such a tragedy. I had a safe and loving childhood, and that's what I see when I look at that kid."

"There's a real misnomer that actors are extroverts, but they rarely are. I was one of those introverted extroverts; quite shy in social situations but totally singular when it came to my ambitions. I was never concerned with what anyone else was doing, which made me very driven. I would watch Cary Grant films and think: Whatever that is, I want to do it. Drama and singing was my only dream."

Anna Maxwell Martin was born in Beverley, East Yorkshire, in 1977, studied at the University of Liverpool and trained at LAMDA. She won a BAFTA for Bleak House and has starred in Line of Duty, Motherland and Midwinter of the Spirit, alongside numerous stage productions. She lives in London with her two daughters; their father, director Roger Michell, died in 2021. She serves as an Action for Children ambassador and appears in the charity's Christmas short Santaland. She recalls a safe, loving childhood, early stage ambitions, supportive scientist parents, competition experience from age ten, and a shy but driven nature.

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