Bio
Anna Maxwell Martin is a British actress best known for her role as Esther Summerson in the BBC adaptation of Bleak House, in 2005.
Martin first came to prominence on the London West End stage playing the leading role of Lyra in the National Theatre's production of Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials.
Her subsequent roles have included the part of Bessie Higgins in the BBC television adaptation of the Elizabeth Gaskell novel, North and South, in 2004; a guest appearance in the 2005 series of Doctor Who; and the central role of Esther Summerson in the 2005 BBC TV adaptation of Charles Dickens' Bleak House, for which she won the 2006 Best Actress BAFTA Television Award.
In January 2006, she took part in a reading of The Entertainer at the Royal Court Theatre, and in February and March she appeared in Other Hands at the Soho Theatre.
She also played Cassandra Austen in Becoming Jane, a film about the early life of the novelist Jane Austen starring American actress Anne Hathaway in the title role, and of the gaoler's daughter in Lee Hall's adaptation of The Wind in the Willows, a multi-million pound production by Box TV for BBC1.
She worked on I Really Hate My Job directed by Oliver Parker, and appeared as Sally Bowles in Bill Kenwright's West End production of Cabaret at the Lyric Theatre.