6 MASTERPIECE Stars in Surprisingly Different Roles
You fell in love with them in Downton Abbey, All Creatures Great and Small, Miss Scarlet and The Durrells in Corfu. Now prepare to do a double take! These six beloved MASTERPIECE actors have stepped far outside their familiar roles, delivering unexpected performances that range from ruthless criminals to complicated survivors. Sometimes the most delightful discovery is seeing a favorite actor in a role you never expected—and loving every minute of it.
Stream all these shows and other great dramas and mysteries from MASTERPIECE on PBS when you watch with PBS Passport, an added member benefit.
Nicholas Ralph
Nicholas Ralph has perfected the art of the good guy—but also shown he can play against type. As country veterinarian James Herriot in All Creatures Great and Small, he’s all warmth, humility, and understated humor. In Grantchester Season 11, he swaps animal patients for inner demons as Rev. John Planer, a seemingly devout missionary with some very troubling secrets. After seeing both sides, we’ll happily book an appointment with James Herriot.
Phyllis Logan
Across six seasons, Phyllis Logan is Downton Abbey’s head housekeeper, the fiercely loyal and endlessly dependable Mrs. Hughes. Then Logan swaps tea trays for a life of crime in the darkly comic Scottish thriller Guilt, morphing into Maggie Lynch, the ruthless matriarch of Glasgow’s underworld. Unlike Mrs. Hughes, Maggie isn’t above a little cold-blooded murder. It’s one of those delightfully unexpected performances that makes you see a familiar face in a whole new light.
Kate Phillips
One minute, Miss Scarlet’s Kate Phillips is outsmarting criminals as the whip-smart and determined Eliza Scarlet, Victorian London's first female detective. The next, she's the quiet and unassuming Jane Seymour in Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light, where her every glance and whispered word can determine her fate in the perilous world of Henry VIII's court. Phillips’ pivot from bold trailblazer to cautious Tudor survivor is a wonderfully unexpected turn.
Keeley Hawes
Few MASTERPIECE characters are as game for an adventure as Keeley Hawes' Louisa Durrell, whose resilience and infectious optimism holds her eccentric family together in The Durrells in Corfu. Hawes trades Corfu’s blue skies for the more subdued hues of London in Miss Austen where she portrays Cassandra Austen with quiet restraint, conveying a lifetime of guarded feelings and sacrifice as Jane Austen’s sister and closest companion. It’s a lovely reminder of her remarkable range.
Samantha Bond
In Downton Abbey, Samantha Bond brings impeccable polish to Lady Rosamund, the wealthy London aunt whose advice to her nieces is as sensible as it is discreet. In The Marlow Murder Club, Bond leaves etiquette behind as Judith Potts, a retired archaeologist turned amateur sleuth with a passion for puzzles and a charming disregard for rules. Bond’s Judith is far more flexible about “appropriate behavior,” especially when it includes skinny-dipping in the Thames.
Downton Abbey image credit: CARNIVAL FILMS/Album
Stefani Martini
Stefanie Martini has mastered the art of the MASTERPIECE marriage—twice. In The Gold, she’s Marnie Palmer, a wife who thinks she knows her spouse—until his criminal activities prove otherwise. In Maigret, she takes a very different turn as the thoughtful Louise Maigret, a psychiatric nurse who helps her Chief Inspector husband look beyond the clues and into the human heart. One marriage has perfect communication; the other could use a serious conversation.
