The actress opens up to ET about playing Charlotte Wells on the new Hulu original series.
While known for playing Lady Sybil Crawley on Downton Abbey, Jessica Brown Findlay has
spent the five years since leaving the show in 2012 -- most notably with a role
on an early episode of Black Mirror and the film Victor Frankenstein -- putting distance between her and upstairs-downstairs drama. And with Harlots, Hulu’s original family drama
about life in a brothel in 18th century London, the actress has found a role
that truly puts Sybil behind her.
“It just felt exciting,” Findlay tells ET by phone about
coming across the role of Charlotte Wells on Harlots. Calling from London, the actress was preparing for the
final weeks of a critically acclaimed production of Hamlet at the Almeida Theatre, in which she played Ophelia. “I just
adored reading a character that you sort of loved but also feel really
frustrated by and makes bad life decisions sometimes.”
A madam’s daughter, Charlotte followed her mother’s
footsteps into the business while managing to climb her way up to a socially
acceptable upper-class courtesan. She wears her wealth as armor, letting
everyone know just how good she is at her job. But her lavish life isn’t as
glamorous or as simple as it appears to be. She’s kept by a man, Sir George
Howard (Hugh Skinner), who may have more interest in her clothes than her and is
in constant strife with her mother, Margaret Wells (Samantha Morton), who still
presides over a low-class brothel.
MORE: Jessica Brown Findlay Opens Up About Eating Disorder
However, any of that vulnerability remains hidden from
public eye. “No one can see what’s going on underneath that she doesn’t want to
f**king show,” Findlay says. “You can’t get further away from the vulnerable, naked nature of what it is to be human when you’re wearing three layers of
skirts, a great big, graying wig with pink streaks and a powdered face.”
However, as the series progresses, chinks in Charlotte’s
diamond-covered armor begin to show. “[She] had all those edges that haven’t
been curved off -- you know, sanded down to make her more palpable,” Findlay says,
adding that she’s excited for fans to see the story continue to unfold in Harlot’s first season. She promises
things get messy, loose ends aren’t tied up and, for Charlotte, things continue
to get quite heavy as the character strives for acceptance. “A lot of my mates
who’ve watched it have been really surprised and excited about the angle it’s
taken and, you know, are really excited about what it’s saying, what it stands
for. So they’re desperate to know more.”
While happy with the reaction to the series so far, at the
end of the day, Findlay is just excited to play a strong, complex woman who
will not be silenced or afraid to stand up to her abusers or persecutors. “That
doesn’t happen very often, so when it does -- and you get to work with great
directors and actors you’ve admired forever -- then you don’t say no to that,”
she says.
New episodes of
Harlots stream Wednesdays on Hulu.