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Anna Maxwell Martin has opened up about how she coped with the death of her former husband Roger Mitchell in 2021.
Mitchell – who was a filmmaker best known for the 1999 romantic comedy Notting Hill – died suddenly three years ago, leaving behind his ex-wife of 16 years Anna and their two daughters.
Anna and Mitchell split in 2020 after being separated for some time, and on his death she paid tribute to him as a ‘kind and gentle man’.
Chatting on Woman’s Hour, the Motherland star, 47, said in the wake of Mitchell’s death she had ‘financial terror’ and worried about her children Maggie and Nancy’s mental health.
Until recently, Line of Duty actor Anna confessed she was living in a state of shock and fear for years.
‘My husband died three years ago,’ Anna began, chatting to Nuala McGovern.
‘Things were really difficult in every aspect of our lives. There’s lots of stuff that comes with grief, and one of those was financial terror.
Anna said her main concern was her daughters’ mental health and ‘financial terror’ (Picture: BBC Woman’s Hour)
Anna said she was in a constant heightened state of shock for years after her ex-husband’s death (Picture: BBC Woman’s Hour)
‘Then there are real practicalities around your children, and their mental health and supporting them, which is your priority.
‘Looking back I was probably in a heightened state of shock and fear for a long time until very recently.
‘I’ve travelled this road of grief and sudden traumatic death before. I’ve done it before. 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 and pretty strong, and I think I’m quite deft. I thought, I’ve just got to keep the motor chugging on.’
Her previous experience of grief happened when Anna was 24, and that was ‘very lonely’, she said.
‘I was very isolated because no one I knew had been through it,’ she said. ‘Then when it happened with Rog, I saw it more as, we’ve got to keep it together for the kids.
‘It’s something about being a woman in your 40s and by then, if you’re lucky enough you would have succeeded in having the best friends and best people around you.
‘You’ll have stopped making mistakes in that area of your life and I really did. I had exceptional friends, and an exceptional support network.’
Anna and Mitchell, who was 20 years her senior, met when he cast her in an Australian play at the National Theatre called Honour.
Filmmaker Roger Mitchell was best known for the 1999 romantic comedy Notting Hill (Picture: Dan Wooller/Shutterstock)
Anna and Roger were married for 16 years (Picture: Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images)
After the split, she told You Magazine: ‘I’m definitely not a single working mother. Roger is amazing. I feel incredibly supported.
‘We always have conversations about work. He is great and we also have a brilliant nanny, and my mum helps out with the girls as well, so all is fine.’
Anna, who had appeared in Mitchell’s final film The Duke and was working with at the time of his death, opened up about her grief in 2022.
She told The Guardian: ‘We didn’t have grudges. I don’t operate like that, Roger didn’t really operate like that.
‘It’s very sad if you separate, it’s devastating, and you hope you’ll come back around, after a period of time, where you’ll be …
‘When Roger died, I lost one of my best friends. I see it as that.’
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