Anna Maxwell Martin

Anna Charlotte Martin was forced to register under her grandfather's name because another Anna Martin was already listed with the actors' union.

In 2005, she played Esther Summerson in the BBC adaptation of Bleak House. It was her first major leading role after graduating from the LAMDA drama school. She won the BAFTA Award for Best Actress, beating out candidates with decades of industry experience.

British audiences soon learned to fear her tight smile.

The Tyranny of the Corset and Breaking the Mold

In 2008, she won the British Academy's top award again for her role in Poppy Shakespeare. But her career took a new turn when she decided to explore sharper comedy. In 2016, she began her run on Motherland, playing Julia.

And the risk paid off.

Because her ability to convey the mental breakdown of a middle-class mother kept her away from period dramas. So she stopped being Dickens's heroine and became a go-to figure for uncomfortable humor on public television. Audiences connected with the everyday despair she handled effortlessly.

Theater has always been her refuge from television fame.

The Art of Being Unbearable

In 2019, she joined the cast of Line of Duty as DI Patricia Carmichael. Her performance was so cold that viewers reacted with visceral hostility toward the character. She made audiences hate a female cop without resorting to physical violence or big dramatic outbursts.

Her personal life also had to contend with media scrutiny. She was married to director Roger Michell until their separation in 2020. A year later the filmmaker passed away, and she had to deal with her grief while raising their two daughters under constant public scrutiny.

During 2024, she starred in the series Ludwig alongside David Mitchell and appeared in the crime drama Until I Kill You. She also worked on the adaptation of A Good Girl's Guide to Murder that same year. Her salary per episode ranks among the highest for an actress of her profile in British television.

The production of A Good Girl's Guide to Murder in 2024 used real locations in Somerset County to recreate the atmosphere of the original novel.