Amandaland airs on BBC One at 9pm on February 5 and the series follows Amanda (played by Lucy Punch) as she raises her teenage children following a recent divorce. Having started a new life in a new location, she has a lot to navigate.
Lucy, 47, was born in Hammersmith, London and her parents ran a market research company. She went to private school and began a course at University College London before dropping out to pursue an acting career.
Her acting debut was in 1998 in an episode of The New Adventures of Robin Hood and she went on to star in Doc Martin and Are You Ready For Love?. She was later cast as Deena Pilgrim, the female lead in the TV pilot Powers, but the role was recast.
In the end it was Susan Heyward who played the role. The pilot was originally slated to air on FX, however it went on to become the first original television series for the PlayStation Network.
Following the change in network, a few of the main roles were recast, including Lucy’s. It was after this that she took on the role of Amanda in Motherland.
Lucy Punch and Joanna Lumley in Amandaland (Image: BBC)
As for her personal life, she was known to have dated actor and film director James D’Arcy for a few years after they met on the set of the TV movie Come Together in 2002.
In 2015 she gave birth to her first child, a son called Rex, and she spoke to Conan O’Brien about how she came to name him.
She said: “It took 10 days to come up with that little name. I didn’t name my baby for 10 days. I took my time and then I gave my baby the name I realised was very similar to my dog’s name – Astrix.
“I often call the baby Astrix,” she joked. “Little baby puppy.” She admitted she was “not prepared” for a newborn and was so “disorganised” during her pregnancy.
Lucy moved to LA back in 2006 and following the recent devastating fires there, she has contemplated moving back to the UK.
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Lucy Punch attends a BBC screening for Amandaland (Image: PA)
She told the Daily Mail how she was struggling to commit to a location, saying: “I’ve always got one foot out the door, wherever I am.
“I never got round to getting a green card. I’m on these rolling visas, which is ridiculous: I have a home there and I have two American children.
“But I can’t commit to anywhere. I get itchy feet. I like being a little bit here and a little bit there.”
She had moved to LA to work on a TV show, The Class, but it was cancelled and work started to dry up.
Lucy was contemplating giving up acting and her mother had even suggested becoming a chiropodist, but when Nicole Kidman dropped out of Woody Allen’s 2010 film You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger, Lucy won her scene-stealing role.
Amandaland airs on One at 9pm on February 5