‘I wouldn’t want to be part of a misery show’
Anna Maxwell Martin, 44, taking the lead in a new ITV thriller surrounding the disappearance of a young boy…
Tell us about your character…
She’s not very likeable and she makes lots of terrible decisions. She’s slightly unhinged and I really liked that. She’s very flawed and she doesn’t handle Alex’s disappearance well at all. I don’t want to give anything away, but she’s not the life and soul of the party.
Can you sum up the drama?
At the centre is this hideously co-dependent relationship between Theresa and her sister Helen. It defines her, and it’s very complex – you just can’t really work out what’s going on between them. Then that relationship is ripped open by a child’s disappearance.
From the outside, it seems Theresa and Helen have the perfect life?
It’s very much a Stepford Wives idyll at the beginning, this very clean perfection – which of course is not real. It’s a veneer for lots of other things going on with these people – the horrors within them and what they’re dealing with, and how things can seemingly look OK on the outside but be really toxic underneath. But it’s not a “doom and gloom” drama series?
It’s important to understand that it’s not another, “Oh God, a child goes missing” drama; it’s about people and relationships and oddness. The missing kiddie is just a catalyst to make people turn in on themselves, and they cast our kids so brilliantly as well. Thankfully, they were a right laugh. There are some dark moments?
I always find filming dramas much funnier than doing comedies. There are some funny characters and some little jokes in Hollington Drive, it’s not all misery – I wouldn’t want to be part of a misery show.
Did you film during the pandemic? I went back to work really early on in the pandemic, to do [Sky comedy] Code 404, and then we did Motherland and Line Of Duty at the same time, so it’s par for the course for me now. It’s much harder for the crew than the actors, we get the easy end of it as we can take off our masks when we’re acting.
Why should we be tuning in?
I raced through the scripts;
I was gripped and it’s a real page turner. I’ve not seen any of it yet, but it’s been a lovely project to be part of. I love thrillers and I hope the audience has a nice night in on the sofa watching it.