People often call me odd. Maybe they mean ugly'

The Telegraph
Published: 15 January 2004
Author: Cassandra Jardine

The young actress bringing Philip Pullman's books to life tells Cassandra Jardine how her father's fatal illness brought out her best

he sell-out theatrical version of Philip Pullman's bestselling trilogy of children's novels, His Dark Materials, begins with Anna Maxwell Martin sitting quietly on a bench, spotlit in the darkness. For the next six hours, the young actress playing Lyra is the audience's focal point amid a bewildering spectacle of supernatural beings and special effects. As the National Theatre's director, Nick Hytner, says, the entire £800,000 production "hangs on Anna''.

"Luckily, he didn't say that before the first night," says Anna, "or I might have been more nervous." As it turned out, critics had reservations about the staging, but they fell over themselves to praise her touching portrayal of the 12-year-old heroine: "superb", "outstanding", "wonderfully alive", "heartfelt", they wrote. It's enough to turn a young actress's head.

"Oh, er," says Anna, awkwardly shifting in her seat in an office overlooking the Thames. "I don't read reviews so, although I know they have had issues with the plays, I don't know what was written about me.''

Her body language suggests, however, that for all her modesty, she has an inkling that she has, to put it mildly, gone down well. Any further doubts would surely have been expunged by the roar of enthusiasm from the audience as she takes her bow each night, a noise that far exceeds the applause for ex-James Bond Timothy Dalton or chisel-cheekboned Patricia Hodge. That must make for jealousy backstage. "Oh yes, people keep pulling knives on me and threatening me with guns," she says.

Anna is, in fact, over twice Lyra's age. Close up, she could never be 12 years old. At 5ft 6in, she is too tall, and her figure – though she considers herself "flat-chested" – too well developed, yet she could easily be some years younger than her age, 25. Vitality and enthusiasm make her both girlish and engaging. She's not a beauty to rival Keira Knightley, but her face is always interesting to watch, as it is so expressive.

"I get described as 'interesting' a lot," she says. "People often call me odd, too. Maybe they mean ugly." Given the services of a plastic surgeon, she knows exactly what she would have done: "I would get a pair of cheekbones," she says, hooting merrily at the thought.

That would be a shame, certainly for playing Lyra. The lack of obvious bone structure makes her face very mobile. She may not become the Hollywood pin-up of her generation, but she is well on her way to being another Judi Dench. Sensibly, she is not banking on it. "Next week," she says, "I could be working in Starbucks.''

Already, she has had enough setbacks in her short career to know that nothing is guaranteed. Having dreamt all her early life, in Beverley, East Yorkshire, of going to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art – "Rada was the only drama school I had heard of" – she didn't get in. But, being of a positive turn of mind, she decided to try the less well-known London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (Lamda), which did want her.

Once there, however, she had a tough time. "I was a rubbish student," she admits. "In my first year, I really struggled. I kept thinking, 'I can't do that' when it came to dancing or whatever. I just wasn't putting enough into it. I remember a great voice teacher taking me aside and asking, 'What are you playing at? Do you want to stay here?' The Lamda teachers are probably really surprised that I've been offered any parts."

When she left, two and a half years ago, she won none of the prizes for her year and was dreading finding herself among the one third of graduates who soon give up drama due to lack of work.

The casting director of the Donmar Warehouse, however, was impressed, and gave her a first break in Lillian Hellman's The Little Foxes. When that finished, she came down to earth with a bump. "I was serving hamburgers for four months," she remembers. "Your confidence is so easily dented.''

But before long, the National offered her work and Anna made her own luck. When she heard the theatre was running workshops to see whether Philip Pullman's books could be staged, she went straight to the casting department to put herself forward for Lyra. Being a "huge fan" of the books, and having a strong sense of how she would play the role, she wanted her chance – and got it.

Many of her friends have had a tougher time – which calls for sensitivity when she sees them – but her boyfriend, Nicholas Burns, whom she met at Lamda, has also been manically busy for the last year. Their problem, for the moment, is finding time to see one another.

As for the money she is earning, "I don't know where it goes," she says. Anna's assets as an actress seem to be not just her talent but her calm nature.

"I'm rather a practical person," she says. "I just get on and focus on what I have to do. I just don't get sleepless or suffer from the jitters. At least, I haven't in His Dark Materials because Nick Hytner is such a support. We are always having a good giggle together."

Acting has been her passion since early childhood and she can't work out why. Her father, who died two years ago, was managing director of a pharmaceutical company in Northern Ireland, commuting weekly from Yorkshire. Her mother was a research scientist who gave up work to look after Anna and her brother, Adam, who is currently writing his first novel.

"I think I was just very loud," she says. "I was always a show girl. My parents were wonderful. There wasn't a lot going on where we lived, but they ferried me to classes and competitions all over the place. When I was 12, I came to London as a finalist in a singing competition and I was completely wide-eyed.''

Having decided that she wasn't "emotionally ready" for drama school at 18, she went instead to Liverpool University to read history. Only at the age of 21 did she feel she had enough experience to cope with acting and living alone in London.

She was in her final year at Lamda when her father was diagnosed with a rare cancer; to her great comfort, he lived long enough to see her appear in The Little Foxes. Hard though it was, the vulnerability she felt at that time chimed well with the weepy parts she was playing and they helped her through the worst of her grief. "It wasn't that I thought, 'I'm having a horrible time so let's bring it all out on stage,'" she says, "but there was a rawness about me.''

Her aim now, however, is to prevent herself being typecast as gloomy, so she has made as much as she can of the comic moments in His Dark Materials. Suddenly, an array of acting opportunities has spread themselves in front of her.

Beyond all that, she longs for "a brood" of many children. "At home, we were just my brother and my mum and dad," she explains. "So when something happens, there are only three of you left to deal with it.''

For a moment, she looks solemn, then she gives one of her huge smiles. "That said, I may have just one child and decide that is more than enough. Whatever happens, I can't imagine giving up work for my family like my mum did. I love it far too much.''

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