Anne Hegerty secured her job on The Chase after "fighting off muggers".
The ITV quiz star has been a regular member on the game show since 2010, just a year after it made its debut on ITV, hosted by Bradley Walsh. At the time, bosses were keen to have a female Chaser come into the mix and it was what Anne put in her letter that convinced show producers she was definitely the right one to sit alongside the other quizzers.
ITV boss Sue Allison has revealed just how The Governess managed to bag her longstanding job on the show, as she opened up about the contents of the letter Anne sent in to pitch herself for the role.
Speaking on the TV Show and Tell podcast, she said: "For the series I really wanted the third chaser to be a woman, a strong woman who could hold her own and could be completely herself. That was quite a hard task. We saw quite a lot of people.
"There were really good quizzers on the circuit, that was the most important thing first and foremost. The people that we met were quite often great quizzers but they were just a bit too nice."
Sue described how the letter showed how perfect Anne would be for the show.
"When we got a letter from Anne, she wrote into the team and said something like she ‘realised what kind of character you needed to be’ because she’d seen the pilot series," she added.
"And she realised you needed to be quite tough, and she had once chased off a couple of muggers. I remember getting this letter and thinking, ‘Come on, be as good as you sound’ and she was."
Bosses were most concerned how they could transform Anne into a Chaser with her outfit choices.
She added: "I think the challenge with Anne was how do we get the look? Because outside of The Chase her style is, she wears these gorgeous floaty, quite floral outfits, which is obviously completely wrong for a Chaser.
"So I remember the day our wardrobe designer took her off to the shops to find something. Then this picture comes back of her looking like Mrs Trunchball, and it was like ‘Yes, that’s the one’. She has been a genius from the start."
Of Anne's incredible success on the show, Sue explained: "She just got it. She’s actually a brilliant actress and she delivers those lines so perfectly when she comes out. Her comic timing is absolutely spot on."
