Actress Joanna Vanderham faced fear of puppets on new movie

British TV star Joanna Vanderham suffered panic attacks on the set of her new movie What Maisie Knew - because she's terrified of puppets.

Director Scott McGehee flew his leading lady to New York from London after auditioning her on SKYPE and he admits he had no idea about her odd phobia until they set up to shoot a puppet show scene.

He tells WENN, "We had one problem with her - that she was phobic of puppets and we hadn't thought to ask her, 'Do you have a puppet phobia?' before she showed up.

"We were on the set shooting our puppet theater day and our AD (assistant director) came over and said, 'Guys, you gotta talk to Joanna, something is wrong'. We were behind her and didn't know and she was white and sweating and it turned out she had a deathly fear of puppets! We had to stop the puppet show to do her close-up."