She might be inundated with offers to play Hollywood leads now but Oscar-nominated actress Olivia Colman has revealed this wasn't always the case and it was down, in part, to the 2004 Kev and Bev AA adverts she starred in.
Calling the advert "the bane of my life", Olivia - who is an awards hopeful for her role in The Favourite - claimed that the advert ended up being 'really annoying' and left her being typecast.
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The advert showed Olivia and her on-screen partner driving an old banger before they see an alternate version of themselves pull up alongside their car.
The new Kev and Bev look more upmarket - with Bev wearing a suit and the couple in a new car - and they reveal they had taken out a car loan with AA which allowed them to be driving a top of the range car.
"AA! That has become the bane of my life. I thought they were going to run that for about a week but they ran it for what felt like four times a day for a year," Olivia told The Mirror. "They ran it for a year having just given me a buy-out, It was really annoying. I lost some jobs."
Not only did she get a one-off 'buy-out' fee, meaning she didn't receive money every time the popular advert was shown, she now says she struggled to get other work as casting directors feared viewers would only see her as her two-toned character, Bev.
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"They ran it for a year having just given me a buy-out," laughs Olivia. "It was really annoying. I lost some jobs."
The 44-year-old actress (who isn't 52 as Wikipedia previously stated) is now one of Britain's brightest hopes for the Oscars next month after being nominated for Best Actress for her role as Queen Anne in The Favourite. And we can't wait to see her performance as the Queen in the third series of The Crown.
Bookies have her as 2/7 favourite to win a Bafta next month.
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