Sins Of The Past

I was angry with my friend:
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe;
I told it not, my wrath did grow.

And I water'd it in fears,
Night & morning with my tears;
And I sunned it with my smiles
And with soft deceitful wiles.

You may not yet be familiar with the name MyAnna Buring, but chances are you’ll recognise her face. With more than 30 film and television roles under her belt – including The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, White Heat and Blackout – the Swedish-born actress is hardly a stranger in our living rooms. She was also nominated for a best actress British Independent Film Award for playing Shel in 2011's Kill List, a role that also earned her a best actress award at the Puchon International Fantastic Film Festival. She played Scooti Manista in the 2006 Doctor Who episode "The Impossible Planet" and was Lotte in the 2009 film Lesbian Vampire Killers.

Now the time has come for the 28-year-old to really make a name for herself with three of her biggest parts to date. In fact, she might just be the busiest actress on TV right now. "I tend not to get recognised," admits MyAnna, who stars in new ITV1 drama The Poison Tree starting tomorrow night, as well as Downton Abbey’s Christmas special and BBC1’s upcoming Victorian chiller Ripper Street. "But I’ve been so busy for the last two years and now everything is coming out at once. I hope people don’t get bored of me – I’m sorry I’m in everything!"


Based on the novel by Erin Kelly (itself named after one of Blake’s Songs of Experience), the two-part The Poison Tree has been adapted by Emilia di Girolamo (Law & Order: UK). The story follows MyAnna’s character, translator Karen Clarke, and her troubled relationships with her ex-convict boyfriend Rex (Matthew Goode), and his hedonistic sister Biba (Ophelia Lovibond) as buried secrets are gradually forced to the surface. Karen and her teenage daughter, Alice (Hebe Johnson), greet Rex on his release from prison after he's done 12 years inside. She's looking forward to starting a new family life with her partner, determined that they should keep from Alice the secret of their past and the events leading to Rex's imprisonment.

Settling down to a normality, life in their new home starts to be disrupted by silent phone calls and anonymous text messages. Someone knows the truth about what happened back in 1999 when Karen and Rex lived with Biba in a crumbling mansion. With hints of incest and a hedonistic lifestyle, through a series of flashbacks we get clues to the momentous, secret events that forged Karen and Rex's relationship. Karen actually met Rex's damaged sister Biba first, when she and Rex were living a sybaritic existence in their own grand house. At the time Karen was a mousey languages student, while Biba was a flamboyant art student. However, behind the partying and drugs lay an unhappy childhood for the siblings, with their rich businessman dad, Max, being unfaithful to his wife, who was suicidal over his antics. As Karen comes on the scene, events come to a murderous climax, though as episode one finishes we are still not sure how Rex ends up in jail. What is clear, is that his release is not the new start Karen hopes for.

"Essentially, Karen's a normal, somewhat plain girl who has her whole life in front of her until a tragic incident changes her life forever," says Buring. "This incident is the beginning of a web of lies, and the Karen we meet in the present day is still coming to terms with having to cover these lies in order to protect what matters most, her family." So, is playing a younger and older version of the same person almost like two different roles? "Well, what is great is that the younger Karen sort of informs how you play her when she’s older," she explains. "She’s an entirely different human being in many respects. But the core things that made her tick when she was younger are still the things that make her tick when she’s older. It’s a bit like having part of your research done for you."

While the part called for MyAnna – who grew up in the Middle East but spent her teenage summers in Scotland before moving to England aged 16 – to master a northern accent, she admits it was the intimate scenes with her co-star that proved the most challenging. "My relationship with Matthew is a matey one – he is married with kids – so it was weird filming scenes where I was in bed with him," she grins. "We wanted to get them over with quickly and then laugh about it afterwards. It would be really awkward if you had a crush on whoever you kissed on-screen and then had to go home and explain it to your other half. I’m always really happy when I don’t fancy the people I’m working with."

When talking of kissing on screen, it is hard not to let your mind wander back to those Lotte smooching scenes on cult horror flick Lesbian Vampire Killers. "It’s always a bit weird and I always feel a slight bit of embarrassment because you’re being asked to snog someone you barely know," she admits. "Actually, to be fair, I knew Vera [Filatova] from drama school, so that was interesting. But when it comes to doing a scene like that, you just get on with it. It’s got to be done, so you try and do everything you can to make it as un-awkward as possible. Vera is divine and so sexy, but absolutely without a doubt it does help being able to be mates beforehand. It means you can have a laugh. In fact, when Vera and I did our scene, her husband and my boyfriend were on-set making sure we didn’t get carried away and enjoy it too much [laughs]. But he needn’t have worried, I’m still happy with my boyfriend."

While MyAnna refuses to discuss her love life ("my private life is my private life"), she will admit that when the racier scenes air, she expects to be interrogated – by her parents. "My family find it weird watching my love scenes and they call me saying: ‘We don’t think you should do those any more,’" she laughs. "The phone gets passed round and I have to explain why I took the role. Everyone gets flustered. My whole family has a say in what parts I take."