Michelle Dockery

Actor

• Born: December 15, 1981
• Birthplace: Romford, England

Contribution: Michelle Dockery is an Emmy– and Golden Globe–nominated English actor and singer best known for her role as Lady Mary Crawley on the ITV period drama series Downton Abbey.

Background

Michelle Dockery was born on December 15, 1981, in Romford, Essex, England. She grew up in the suburb of Chadwell Heath, Essex, with her two older sisters, Louise and Joanne. Her father, Michael, worked as a surveyor and her mother, Lorraine, was a homemaker. Dockery took an early interest in the entertainment industry and attended the Finch Stage School, funding the drama lessons herself by taking on after-school and weekend jobs. She later gained two A-levels at the Chadwell Heath Foundation School.

After graduating, Dockery took a year off before enrolling at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. She completed the three-year degree program in 2004. After Dockery graduated, she decided to pursue acting studies for eighteen months at the National Theatre in London, where she got the opportunity to work with such famous actors as Michael Sheen and Lesley Manville.

Career

Dockery started landing parts soon after graduating from Guildhall, appearing in small roles in a number of television films and miniseries, including Fingersmith (2005), Consent (2007), and Poppy Shakespeare (2008). She also found success on the stage. In 2008, Dockery gave a noteworthy performance as Eliza Doolittle in Peter Hall’s production of George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion, for which she won the Milton Shulman Award for outstanding newcomer at the 2008 Evening Standard Theatre Awards.

The year 2009 saw her continuing to develop as an actor when she landed the lead in the two-part BBC1 miniseries The Turn of the Screw, based on the 1898 Henry James novel of the same name. She also appeared in two films of the Red Riding trilogy, a film adaptation of the crime novel quartet by writer David Peace. Dockery’s role in the Red Riding films was markedly different from any she had previously played, as she depicted a police officer on the hunt for a serial killer. She also appeared in a stage production of Burnt by the Sun at the Lyttelton Theatre, for which she was nominated for the Laurence Olivier Award for best actress in a supporting role in 2010.

Though Dockery had made moderate headway as an actor by 2010, she still was performing only in English theater and television roles and did not achieve much critical recognition outside the United Kingdom. Those fortunes were all about to change, however, when Dockery landed a role in the ITV period drama Downton Abbey, part of the Masterpiece anthology series.

The show revolved around the aristocratic Crawley family, who live in England’s post-Edwardian period of the early twentieth century. Dockery’s character, Lady Mary Crawley, is the privileged daughter of the earl of Grantham, portrayed by Hugh Bonneville, and his wife (Elizabeth McGovern). Mary is harsh and pampered, but her character gradually matures as she falls in love with her father’s heir, Matthew Crawley (Dan Stevens).

Downton Abbey was a surprise hit around the world, especially in the United States, where it was broadcast on PBS beginning in 2011. By the show’s third season, it was drawing an average audience of 11.5 million people each week, making it the highest-rated PBS drama in the network’s history. In 2012, Dockery was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award and Satellite Award for best actress in a drama series and in 2013 she was nominated for an Emmy and a Golden Globe Award for her critically acclaimed performance on the show. She and the rest of the cast collectively won a Screen Actors Guild Award in 2013 for outstanding performance by an ensemble in a drama series, and her consistently engaging portrayal of Lady Mary earned her another Emmy nomination for outstanding lead actress in a drama series in 2014. Downton Abbey maintained loyal fans but ultimately came to an end after its sixth season in 2016 in the United States.

Due to Downton Abbey’s colossal success, many of the show’s cast found more mainstream film and television work soon after the show premiered, and Dockery was no exception. In 2011, she played a supporting role in the well-reviewed action thriller Hanna. The next year, she appeared in the two-part English television film Henry IV, based on William Shakespeare’s plays. Later in 2012, Dockery played Princess Myagkaya in Joe Wright’s Anna Karenina, a high-profile film adaptation of the Leo Tolstoy novel. Switching gears, she had a role in the Liam Neeson action-thriller Non-Stop in 2014 and appeared in the Ryan Reynolds sci-fi thriller Self/less in 2015.

Not long after the end of Downton Abbey's run, Dockery could be seen on television once more, playing the part of Letty Raines in the TNT drama series Good Behavior. In a departure from her role as Lady Mary, she portrayed a con artist who has recently served time in prison and becomes entangled with a hitman as she attempts to find her way back to her son. As the series suffered from poor ratings, it was ultimately canceled after two seasons, with its final episodes airing in late 2017. Still, Dockery turned in another memorable performance, this time as Alice Fletcher in the Netflix limited Western miniseries Godless (2017). Her performance earned her another Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited Series or Movie. Due to the popularity of the series, she was next able to reprise her role as Lady Mary for the feature film Downton Abbey (2019), which performed very well at the box office.

Impact

Michelle Dockery’s acting career progressed quickly from minor roles on the stage and on television to mainstream success and widespread critical acclaim. She has been nominated for Emmy Awards, the Laurence Olivier Award, and Golden Globe Awards, among others, and she will likely have further success on stage and in film as she continues to develop as an actor.

Personal Life

In addition to her achievements as an actor, Dockery is an accomplished jazz singer and plays guitar in her spare time. She is a patron of Changing Faces, an organization in the United Kingdom that helps people with facial or other disfigurements, and has been involved with several other charities. She was engaged to public relations executive John Dineen; he died following an illness in 2015.

Principal Works

Film

Hogfather, 2006

Red Riding, 2009

Hanna, 2011

Anna Karenina, 2012

Non-Stop, 2014

The Sense of an Ending, 2017

Downton Abbey, 2019

Television

Downton Abbey, 2010–15

Good Behavior, 2016–17

Bibliography

Brown, Laura. “Downton’s Lady Mary.” Harper’s Bazaar. Hearst Communications, 4 July 2013. Web. 19 July 2013.

Dockery, Michelle. “Michelle Dockery.” Interview by Elisabeth Moss. Interview Oct./Nov. 2012: 132–59. Print.

Miller, Julie. “Michelle Dockery Promises That Lady Mary’s Return to the Singles Scene Won’t Be as Gut-Wrenchingly Sudden as Matthew’s Exit.” Vanity Fair. Condé Nast, 28 May 2013. Web. 19 July 2013.

Rowley, Tom. “Downton Abbey’s Michelle Dockery: Nostalgia Is Key to Drama’s Success.” Telegraph. Telegraph Media Group, 15 Oct. 2012. Web. 21 July 2013.

Whipp, Glenn. “Michelle Dockery on Lady Mary’s Dramatic Curve on Downton Abbey.” Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles Times, 28 May 2013. Web. 19 July 2013.