Get all your news in one place.
100’s of premium titles.
One app.
Start reading
Liverpool Echo
Liverpool Echo
Entertainment
Gemma Jones

Saturday Night Takeaway: Anna Maxwell Martin's top roles and Liverpool past

Ant and Dec will be back on our screens this week with another instalment of Saturday Night Takeaway.

This week's SNT guest announcer will be none other than Anna Maxwell Martin. Best known for appearing in hit shows such as Line of Duty, Hollington Drive and Motherland, the actress has certainly had a stellar career.

The 44-year-old has enjoyed more than 15 years of critical acclaim as a stage and television actress. She has previously described herself as a drama queen from a young age.

READ MORE: Ant and Dec's 'drunken fight' before TV appearance, music career and 'awful' show

She recalled dressing up as a child and loving performing. She told the Guardian : “I’d dress up in little outfits and I’d get to sing solos. I remember dressing as a pearly queen for one performance, but Whitney [Houston] was my idol.”

By the time she was 11, Anna had joined an after-school drama club and decided that was it for her. She decided that she was going to become an actress.

But at the age of 18, she didn't feel 'emotionally ready' for drama school. Instead she chose to study History at Liverpool University. She later attended Lamda [London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art], where she graduated from in 2001.

Despite graduating from the University of Liverpool so long ago, it has been reported that the actress has kept the same tight circle of friends since attending.

Two years after graduating, Anna met her future husband. She was married to the TV and film director Roger Mitchell for 16 years, before the couple split in 2020 after being separated for some time.

Anna and Roger, who was 20 years her senior, first met in 2003 when he cast her in a National Theatre production of the Australian play Honour, opposite the late Corin Redgrave. The filmmaker, best known for helming the hugely successful 1999 romantic comedy Notting Hill, tragically died on 22 September at the age of 65.

The couple married and had two daughters together, Maggie, 11, and eight-year-old Nancy, before announcing their separation.

Referring to the split, she said: "I haven’t really spoken about it because it isn’t fair on all the people involved. There are four children to think about. It’s taken an enormous amount of time, but we are all getting through it in a healthy way … you get on with life. We talk all the time."

Receive newsletters with the biggest and breaking TV and showbiz news by signing up here

Sign up to read this article
Read news from 100’s of titles, curated specifically for you.
Already a member? Sign in here
Related Stories
Top stories on inkl right now
Our Picks
Fourteen days free
Download the app
One app. One membership.
100+ trusted global sources.