From a 2015 article in the Guardian….
“Abbington herself grew up an only child in Hertfordshire, where she and Freeman still live. Her grandparents were pretty big on politeness, she says, and she’s always been close to her parents and still hates the idea of letting them down. Then there were the dance classes that she took from the age of five, three or four a week, that instilled a sense of discipline. At 16 she ripped her groin muscles doing the splits, and her future as a professional dancer was over, but her teachers had seen enough to encourage her to act instead.”