The Wind in the Willows
Anna Maxwell Martin plays Gaoler's Daughter
Anna Maxwell Martin found it hard to stop laughing while filming The Wind in the Willows.
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"I didn't know Matt Lucas before but he is truly hilarious and so creative and talented. I found it hard to keep a straight face and corpsed with him all the time. I am quite naughty anyhow, but being around Matt gave me licence to misbehave! Also comically he is the most brilliant person to bounce off."
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Anna plays the Gaoler's Daughter, who meets Toad after he has been sent to prison.
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"She is simple and sweet and she has a bit of a glint in her eye. That was the fun thing about playing her. You wonder if she is going to be a bit evil, like Stephen King's Misery. I had great fun playing the scenes where you wonder whether she will let Toad out.
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"She wears a little cap, which made me look unattractive, and rags. I am used to bonnets and corsets, but hers had seen better days. I was given yellowy, browning teeth – lovely!"
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Anna heard about the role after her success in Bleak House, for which she won a BAFTA for her portrayal of Esther Summerson.
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"It was the day after the BAFTAs and I was a little high on emotions from the night before, and feeling a bit fragile, so I was giddy and relaxed at the audition. It's always nice going to a meeting and having something to talk about. It's not every day you win a BAFTA.
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"I was shocked by the reaction I got for Bleak House. It was very intensive but one of the best jobs of my life. It was a chance to play a character that grows and develops and I was very enmeshed in it. But I didn't realise how stylish it was and how much people would love it."
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Anna jumped at the opportunity to appear in The Wind in the Willows.
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"The book was one of my childhood favourites and it gets a response from every generation, even the little ones. All my friends remembered the Gaoler's Daughter. Having Matt in it brings it up-to-date for kids because he's massive with them. It brings the story into a contemporary forum. It'll be great for Christmas.
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"It's a good thing for me to do some comedy. You get pigeonholed very quickly so it's nice to break away from it. I absolutely revelled in it."
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Anna trained at LAMDA and her roles include an Olivier-nominated performance as Lyra in the stage adaptation of Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials. On television, she has appeared in Doctor Who, North & South and Midsomer Murders.
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"I was very lucky early on and had three years of doing every job I wanted to do, and found them fascinating and challenging. That's a dream for an actor. After Bleak House, things went quiet for six months but I relished the break because I was exhausted."
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Anna appears in two new films I Really Hate My Job with Neve Campbell and Becoming Jane, about Jane Austen, with Anne Hathaway and James McAvoy.
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She recently made her musical theatre debut as Sally Bowles in Cabaret. "It's a role I have dreamed about doing all my life and you can't get further away from Bleak House," says Anna.
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