I Medici: dove (altro) vedere il cast

Annabel started her career playing Diana Rivers in Jane Eyre, and went on to star in Being Human and BBC3’s Personal Affairs. Before that, she has had an extensive theatrical career, playing in many productions, including at the Almeida Theatre, the National Theatre and the Old Vic Theatre.

She was the lead actress in 2014 musical film Walking on Sunshine, and more recently, she played the Contessina in the eight-part series Medici: Masters of Florence. The second series to Medici will be out later on this year, and while Annabel will make an appearance in it, she promises the Contessina will be “somewhat older and wiser in this one”.

After Britannia, Annabel will then take up a lead role in upcoming BBC One six-part drama The Split written by award winning writer Abi Morgan and also starring Nicola Walker. The show centres on a family of female divorce lawyers and is due out this spring. Beyond that, she is thinking of doing another film in the near future and maybe go back to theatre as it has been two years since her last play.

What was it about Contessina de’ Medici that made you want to portray her in Medici: Masters of Florence?

Contessina was the most incredible part to play. On the page she clearly stood out as the heart of the piece and I fell in love with her immediately. Her strength, fiery temper, love for her family. I have a huge love for Italy, so to play the matriarch of such an important Italian family really felt like something important. Oh, and we filmed in Italy, so that might have been slightly attractive too!

What was your favourite location to film at for that series?

Pienza in Tuscany. It was somewhere I had never been and we arrived in October so it was really beautiful. We actually filmed in a square where Franco Zeffirelli filmed Romeo and Juliet; that really blew me away. All the locations were stunning, though. Rome is my favourite city in the world and we were there for five months.

If you could only eat one Italian dish for the rest of your life, which do you choose?

It would be Tiramisu but from Taverna Trastevere in Rome. Specific, I know.