Billie Boullet plays Anne Frank in Nat Geo’s A Small Light, and to say she brings Anne back to life is a huge understatement. Even as Holocaust education is slowly disappearing, sometimes outright being ripped away from curriculums in an all-new layer of cruelty, The Diary of a Young Girl is still, probably, one of the most well known first-person accounts from that time period. And yet, most people don’t get a chance to see the full picture. Over time, Anne’s story has been over-simplified, misunderstood, misappropriated in so many ways, it’s almost as if her words never survived at all.
Enter Boullet, who, in some indefinable way, makes it possible to look up at the screen and say, “that’s her. That’s the girl from the diary.” Even in a series that seeks to tell Miep Gies’ story — not Anne’s — Boullet’s portrayal of Anne Frank stands out. Not only is she a key figure in Miep’s story, but she also manages to reclaim some of her own.
This version of Anne isn’t the one that’s snuck her way into the few remaining schools covering the Holocaust, ostensibly teaching the material all while actually minimizing the nazis’ horrors and glossing over even this one person’s fears. She is, instead, a great many things. Yes, there’s a certain light and lightness about her. But she’s capable of much darker moods, as well. And, given the great lengths Gies went to to protect this teenager and, later, to preserve her words when it was too late to save her life, we’d like to think she’d approve.
So, when we had the opportunity, we were delighted to interview Billie Boullet about the role. During our conversation, which you can watch in full below, we covered a lot of ground. Most of it focused on her approach to finding Anne’s version of herself, not everyone else’s. Initially, Boullet told us, she was “in the same group of those people,” who believed society’s rewritten history. “I thought she was a very innocent, reserved little girl who went through something traumatic,” Boullet admitted. But once she started reading, her “mouth was wide open” from reading a passage about Anne wanting to smack her mom. After getting over that shock and reading more, the actress “really fell in love with her because she was a lot more feisty and fiery and stronger than I thought.”
She crafted her version of Anne by using the diary “as a template of how her mind works. So, I just kept reading it. And audio-booking it. Trying to see how she thinks, and how she thinks of people, and how she reacts to certain words being said. So that I could get into her mind and less of her…her character that people might perceive her as.”
Also during the interview, we inevitably touched on the way stories like Anne’s, and so many others’, are in danger. Boullet admitted her own reading assignments never included the diary. Looking back, she admitted, she’s “quite amazed” by the omission. Especially since “this is just a lot more important” than most lessons. “And it’s — it’s a true story. It’s something that we we should live by and — and see not happen again. Which, unfortunately, it is starting to happen again in different parts of the world, and…which is awful. And I heard about America banning — not banning, but taking out the Anne Frank diary from the education system. Which I think is completely silly. I mean, it’s ridiculous. How can you take something so important out of an education system?”
As Boullet reminds us (and I’ve said many times myself): “We are the last generation to have Holocaust survivors.” So, when they’re gone, “how are we meant to be educated on it — how are we meant to remember these stories if it’s not actually being taught? Which is…I can’t even. It makes me quite angry.”
But, maybe, all of this is why A Small Light is “coming at the right time.” Since the series is “in a non-documentary style,” Boullet thinks it may be easier for more students to process. “It’s something that you can watch; it’s something there’s ups and there’s downs. It’s not somebody talking straight at you for three hours.” Instead, “it’s something that you can get involved in, and immersed in, and want the best for them. You get connected to it emotionally. And I feel like this would have been amazing to put into schools.” Because students “can really be educated by it in a completely different way than than they have been before.”
Oh, and a message for the people removing Anne Frank’s diary from libraries and schools: “I feel like I hope that the people that have tried, who are going to, take Anne Frank’s diary out, watch this. And realize that that is a silly, silly mistake, and they should keep it in.”
Asked if she feels any pressure around how A Small Light will be received — even by normal people who aren’t more worried about what might offend them in Anne’s diary than, you know, the horrific time period she lived and died in — Boullet admitted, “I feel I’ve put pressure on myself. But I do feel the pressure to get it right.” It all comes down to honoring Anne’s memory. “Because I mean, Anne is…she’s incredible. And her story has touched so, so, so many people.”
Talking to the actress, it’s clear that one of those many people was Boullet herself. “I want to be true by her. And I want to do like I want to get it right for her,” she told us. And she just wants “to let her story be told, and her personality be told — I don’t want that to get lost. I don’t want people to have a false sense about her; I want people to see her the way she was. Because she was strong in who she was.”
Put simply, Anne Frank “was herself. And that was it! And that’s what people will get. So, that’s what I wanted to give that same energy. That — that this was Anne. And the person that you might have thought she was, it’s just not true.” Boullet also said of Anne, “she’s such a special person.”
Watch our full interview with Billie Boullet below.
In addition to the topics summarized here, we also mention some of the more difficult mother-daughter dynamics, hopeful moments, favorite scenes to film, and much, much more.
Catch Billie Boullet in A Small Light, which premieres its first two episodes on Nat Geo on Monday, May 1, at 9/8c. Episodes will be streaming on Disney+ and Hulu the next day.
