Until I Kill You’s Anna Maxwell Martin explains why she didn’t meet Delia Balmer

ok.co.uk:

Anna Maxwell Martin has blown audiences away with her raw portrayal of attack survivor Delia Balmer in the new ITV drama Until I Kill You.The drama tells the story of how Delia survived a near-lethal relationship with her serial killer partner John Sweeney.

And opening up on how she got into character for the series, Anna has now revealed why she chose not to meet the real life Delia to help with the role. "I’ve played quite a few real people and I have never met them before.

I don’t choose to do that, that’s how I work," began Anna. She continued: "Our writer, Nick, filmed a lot of footage of his meetings with Delia, which I had access to.

I did meet her very briefly during filming, but only because she wanted to visit the set and of course I was respectful of that. "I didn’t do lots of research into abusive relationships either, instead I just focused on the character, on who she was, how she responded to things, and what I could gauge about how she interacted with people.Then you go from there and you try to be as accurate as you can in terms of how that person would behave and respond." Former nurse Delia escaped death when John attempted to murder her in 1994, with the series depicting how Delia was in a relationship with him from 1991 that became frightening, with him holding her captive and later attacking her with an axe and a knife, leaving her with life-changing injuries.