Anna Maxwell Martin has laid bare the grief and fear she went through following the death of her husband and Notting Hill director Roger Michell.
The couple first met when Michell directed Martin in the 2004 adaptation of Ian McEwan’s novel Enduring Love. The actor was 26 at the time, while the director was 48.
Marrying in 2010, they went on to have two daughters. In 2020, the Line of Duty actor announced that the pair had separated. A year later, Michell suddenly died of an undisclosed cause, aged 65.
The Motherland star, now 47, said that the experience had left her in a state of “financial terror”.
“My husband died three years ago and things were really difficult on every aspect of our lives,” she told BBC Woman’s Hour on Tuesday (29 October).
“One of those was that there’s a lot of stuff that comes with grief, and one of them is financial terror. And then there are real practicalities around your children and their mental health, and supporting them, which is your priority.”
Describing the aftermath of the death, the mother-of-two said, “Looking back, I was probably in a state of shock, and fear, and a heightened state, for a long time actually, until very recently.”
She continued, “I’ve tried this road before, of grief, and sudden traumatic death. I’ve done it before, and so in a way I could pick myself up and do it again.
“It was horrible to have to see my children walk that road, but I’m pretty gritty, I’m pretty strong, and I think I’m quite deft, I hope, at navigating life. And I thought, ‘I’ve just got to keep the motor chugging on.’”
Describing her first experience of loss, she explained: “When it happened to me [for the first time] and I was 24, I was very lonely. I was very isolated because no-one had been through what I’d been through. I didn’t know those people.
“And then when it happened with Rog, I saw it more as, ‘We’ve all got to keep it together for the kids.’”
Martin explained that as a woman in her 40s she was grateful for “having the best friends and best people around”.
She added, “You’ll have stopped making mistakes in that area of your life. And I really did, I had exceptional friends, an exceptional support network.”
