After experiencing the strangeness of the Academy Awards with her last film The Brutalist, the indie actor has reunited with its creators for period curio The Testament of Ann Lee. But what she’d really like to get her teeth into is a certain dino franchise
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tacy Martin is “not a religious person”. Still, the actor insists things have happened in her life that have made her realise there’s “a whole expanse of things that are unexplainable”. Once, at home in north London, she noticed a lightbulb flickering. She couldn’t solve the mystery: no matter how many times she changed it, the bulb continued to blink. Instead of consulting the internet, Martin went to see her psychic, a tea leaf reader she meets annually, booking in under a fake name.
The psychic suggested that someone was trying to communicate with her. “I was like: ‘What if I just start talking to this person that apparently wants to talk to me?’” says Martin. “And so I did. And that light never flickered again.” Martin prefers not to use the word ghost, but she’s aware there are things the mind can’t make sense of; things the body somehow knows.
In her new film, The Testament of Ann Lee, her body is a vessel for the divine. Mona Fastvold’s wild movie musical tells the story of the 18th-century religious leader and mother of four who swore off sex with her husband but gave her body over to God. Ann Lee (Amanda Seyfried), founder of the Shakers, expresses devotion through song and dance, writhing, trembling and shaking her way to deliverance. Martin plays a key part as Jane “Mother Jane” Wardley, leader of the Shaking Quakers and the woman “who showed Ann Lee who she could become”, says Martin.
