Phyllis Logan hails from a small town in Scotland, and is a graduate of the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama. Her big break came when she was cast as the lead in the 1983 film Another Time, Another Place, a role for which she won numerous awards. With a substantive list of film and television credits to her name including Secrets and Lies, Shooting Fish and Silent Witness, Logan has appeared in the MASTERPIECE productions And a Nightingale Sang and All the King's Men.

While her Downton Abbey character, Mrs. Hughes, is a severe disciplinarian, Logan describes an atmosphere of fun and laughs on set. "Screaming and laughing – that has been going on. Anyone who comes down to the set in Ealing (where we film the below-stairs segments) will know that it's very ribald. I mean this is what is so lovely about it. You are looking like this, all buttoned up, but then yesterday we were all pretending to moon the camera! So we do have a laugh. Siobhan and Rob I would say are the main protagonists in that department…"