Back in early 2014, when I last interviewed Amanda Abbington, she was taking a bashing on social media over her role as Dr Watson’s bride in the BBC series Sherlock. What I could not know was that she was about to go through a far worse time with the man who played him, Martin Freeman, her partner and the father of her son and daughter. Two years after that interview, they separated. Today, encased against the winter in a hat with long earflaps that conceals her newly darkened hair, she tells me about the break-up, how it destroyed her self-esteem and threatened her children’s wellbeing but also, crucially, why it didn’t dent her faith in romance. The online abuse flung at Abbington five years ago…

Source: The Times February 09, 2019 00:01 UTC