Anna Popplewell was born on December 16, 1988 in London, England. Her parents are both professionals, her mother is a doctor and her father, a barrister (lawyer). She has a younger brother, Freddie and a younger sister, Lulu (also an actress). Anna has had a love of acting since she was a young child. In fact, at the age of six, she began to attend classes the Allsorts Drama club on Saturday afternoons in her hometown of London. Allsorts provides training to young children, as well as professional services as agents, which gives them a foot into the movie and television industries. Through Allsorts, she got an agent who began to get parts for her. At first the parts were small, such as her debut role as Henrietta in the made for TV movie Frenchman’s Creek in 1998, then as Betsey in her big screen debut in Mansfield Park in 1999. Her first big role was as Anna Sackville-Bagg, in the movie The Little Vampire in 2000. She loved participating in this movie and the people she worked with, however, she went to 5 or 6 interviews before she was given this role. The same year she also appeared in Dirty Tricks, a made for TV movie. In 2001, she had the privilege of acting with her own sister, Lulu in a TV miniseries entitled Love in a Cold Climate. She received parts in other movies over the next two years, such as in Me Without You in 2001, and Thunderpants in 2002 and the made for TV movie, Daniel Deronda, also in 2002. In 2003, she played the role of Maertge, in the critically acclaimed movie, Girl With a Pearl Earning. In August 2005, it was announced that Anna was cast as Susan Pevensie, one of the co-stars in the upcoming blockbuster film, Disney’s Chronicles of Narnia, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, based on the classic C.S. Lewis novel. Anna and crew had been filming for most of 2004 for this huge undertaking – but was first approached about it almost two years prior to being cast for the role. She had read the books when she was seven, but re-read them again during the casting process to better understand the character of Susan – which may have helped her to get the part. It is also a character that she identifies with in her own life, especially Susan’s love of learning and hard work ethnic.