'No-one was looking because I am middle-aged and invisible', says Anna Chancellor as she reflects on grieving as a mother

Anna Chancellor has recently spoken about the loss of her only child, Poppy Chancellor, two years ago and how "no-one" noticed her tears whenever she broke down in public.

Grief is a completely individual and unique experience and there are some losses that you could only understand if you’d gone through them - and which change you profoundly. The death of your child is an unimaginable tragedy for any parent and British acting legend Anna Chancellor has recently opened up about her own experience of grief. Anna’s only child, artist Poppy Chancellor, died of leukaemia aged 36 in September 2023.

Describing her daughter as "incredible" during an interview with The Times earlier this month, Anna movingly shared that there’s "nowhere" that she hasn’t "broken down" after losing Poppy, but that people didn’t notice.

"In a way, when you’ve lost your child you are given a bit of a gold card. People expect it. And what’s been lucky for me is that I have had the ability to go out in public and cry wherever," she explained. "There’s nowhere I’ve been where I haven’t broken down. I’ve cried on trains, really cried, and no-one’s noticed."

The Four Weddings And A Funeral star reflected candidly that "no-one was looking" during these heart-wrenching moments and she believes that this was because she is "middle-aged" and "invisible". Anna, who turns 60 in April, went on to reveal how she thinks Poppy’s death has changed her.

"When she was told she had leukaemia, she turned to me and her husband [the music manager Jonny McKenzie-Wynne] and went, ‘Why me? I’m a laugh.’ And she was. So something like that, you are either going to crumple or you are going to carry on. I feel in some strange way it’s been the making of me as a person," the star said.

She is currently starring in Playhouse Creatures and explained that she now definitely has no time for "hierarchy" in the workplace.

Anna declared, "From now on I am going to work with my mates. If you are going to work for 500 quid a week, do you really want to be working with someone who tells you to shut up, effectively? After Poppy died, hierarchy died for me completely. You know, ‘know your place’, particularly in our English class system, blah, blah, blah… I couldn’t go into a rehearsal room where someone is the big cheese."

The actor, who’s appeared in everything from BBC drama The Split to Amazon’s My Lady Jane, said that Poppy was "brave", "extraordinary" and someone who "just seemed to find joy and art and beauty in things". This poignantly echoes what Poppy once said about her mother in a joint piece for Papier, showing their similarities and huge admiration for each other.

"She is so confident and wildly brave. Everyone who meets her falls in love with her. From the cab driver to the waitress," Poppy wrote. "I wish I had a little more of my mum’s fearlessness. I’m very anxious and I need a bit more of mum’s playful approach to life."

When Poppy passed away in 2023, her death was announced jointly by Anna, her husband Redha, Poppy’s husband Jonny and her half-sister Tara. The actor described them as a "new family" they’ve had to create and that they "make it work" as they continue to grieve her.

"We’ve had to renew. We’ve had to create a new family, all four of us. At Christmas now none of us is actually related to each other but you have to make it work. You have to make choices to make things work," she said.