Next to that is an abstract mural winding its way up the staircase, which she painted herself, and looks really rather lovely thanks to her fine art training. ‘The thing about fame that really freaks me out is the idea of not being able to do normal things,’ says Jessica, settling down at the kitchen table in her East London home, in front of a wall painted in Farrow and Ball’s Sulking Room Pink – a choice, she says, that amuses Ziggy greatly as she herself is prone to a sulk. It’s an eclectic array of characters, but the variety has helped her sidestep the ‘celebrity’ side of her industry by leaving shows before she becomes too ‘household’, too well-known to be able to keep life simple. Jessica Brown Findlay in Downton with her on-screen sisters Laura Carmichael and Michelle Dockery. She’s played Ophelia opposite Andrew Scott’s Hamlet at London’s Almeida Theatre, starred in the film The Riot Club – reputedly based on Boris and co’s infamous Oxford University Bullingdon club – and most recently played 18th-century prostitute Charlotte Wells in the BBC’s Harlots.
Ziggy heath harlots character series#
She went on to appear in the first series of Black Mirror, then Winter’s Tale with Russell Crowe and Colin Farrell.
her role in the British coming-of-age film Albatross, alongside Felicity Jones, was followed almost immediately by being cast in Downton in 2010, which she starred in for two years, before quitting at its peak to try something new. She found herself falling into acting after becoming obsessed with the theatre. She had previously trained at the Royal Ballet, but an ankle injury at 18 put paid to her dreams of becoming a ballerina. She was just 21 when that series hit our screens, taking on the pivotal role of Lady Sybil while simultaneously studying Fine Art at Central Saint Martins in London. It might not sound like the huge-money, magazine-sponsored wedding of your average celebrity but, despite a career that kicked off in Downton, one of the cultural landmarks of the past decade, ‘celebrity’ isn’t something that interests 31-year-old Jessica. There will be fairy lights and dancing (her absolute favourite pastime) and a towering pink and green cake that looks a little like an homage to one of the fancy costumes from her drama Harlots. There’s the ceremony in a local London church, and then a red double-decker bus to take them to their reception nearby with 28 of their nearest and dearest. When we speak it is four days before her wedding to her boyfriend of four and a half years, fellow actor Ziggy Heath, and even though 2020 has scuppered her initial plans for the big day, she is determined that the show must go on, albeit in a strict ‘30-only guest list, socially distanced’ kind of way. Jessica Brown Findlay, the actress best known as Downton Abbey’s Lady Sybil Crawley, is deep in organisation mode. She opens up to Francesca Babb about the personal struggles behind the glamour. Jessica Brown Findlay found fame in Downton at just 21, but off screen she was falling apart.
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