The former Brookside babe has, at 26, become a sought after actress.
She has been working almost non-stop since Brookside, playing Hermia in A Midsummer Night's Dream alongside Michelle Pfeiffer, and one of The Land Girls alongside Rachel Weisz; an American in Sunset Strip, and South Londoner Lisa Leeson in Rogue Trader.
We'll next see her in Timeline, in which a group of archaeological students become trapped in the past.
Since leaving Brookside in 1995, her career has proved there really is life after soap - even if, like Beth Jordache, the character she played, you make your exit in a coffin.
The petite actress is 5ft 3ins and seven-and-a-half stone.
Her role as Lisa Leeson called for removal of most of her trademark tumbling auburn hair.
"I wouldn't look at it in the beginning when it was overbleached and it went grey!"
In BBC2's The Tribe, she did her first nude scene, a three-in-a-bed romp.
"I'm really inhibited about my body," she says. "But when you're filming, you completely lose any inhibitions you have."
Anna doesn't spend hours a day in the gym and says she gets all the exercise she needs by working and walking.
During the shooting of her first Hollywood film, Sunset Strip, she was told to stop eating doughnuts and 'lose that tummy'.
"I said, `What tummy?' and I argued my point, but at the end of the day, you still think 'Have I got a tummy?' so I make more of an effort now, especially yoga."
She says she doesn't know the meaning of the word diet, but although she eats whatever she likes, it's in moderation.
"My career would be in jeopardy if I allowed myself to let go and eat all the wrong stuff," she says.
"But with all the flying and inconsistent meals and stuff, it's hard." She also smokes a little, which helps prevent her nibbling between meals.
She was devastated when Darren Day walked out on their two-and-a-half year relationship and paraded his new love, Coronation Street star Tracy Shaw.
She then had a brief romance with singer Robbie Williams. "He made me smile and made me feel attractive again."
Now she is enjoying a three-year relationship with actor David Thewlis. They live together between his flat in London and her house in Windsor, Berkshire.
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