MASTERPIECE Studio

Warning: This episode contains spoilers for Episode One of Les Miserables. After a career of playing notable villains,  actor Dominic West says he’s ready to turn a new leaf. So his role as the tortured thief, Jean Valjean, in the new MASTERPIECE production of Victor Hugo’s classic novel, Les Misérables, is a helpful bridge to be a better man on screen. In an interview, he talks about what it means to play Valjean, how his character seeks personal redemption and what the rest of the series has in store for the repentant former prisoner 24601.

*Warning: This episode contains spoilers for Episode Three of *Mrs. Wilson. The story of Alison Wilson’s relationship with British spy novelist and actual spy, Alexander Wilson, almost seems too wild for reality and too bizarre for the author’s own fiction. But the history, beautifully brought to life by Wilson’s granddaughter, Ruth Wilson, was real. It’s a genre-busting journey where series writer Anna Symon always sought to highlight the power of family joy in this rather dark true tale.

*Warning: This episode contains spoilers for Episode One of Season Three of *Unforgotten. When writer Chris Lang created the MASTERPIECE Mystery! series *Unforgotten, *he looked to capture the very ordinary extraordinariness of a modern police force. With a new season on the way, Lang explains what viewers should watch out for as Cassie and Sunny unearth another unidentified body beneath a London roadway construction site.

*Warning: This episode contains spoilers for Episodes One and Two of *Mrs. Wilson. When actor Ruth Wilson's grandmother, Alison, died, she left her family a surprisingly candid memoir about her relationship with her secret agent husband, the mystery author Alexander Wilson. The truths that Ruth and her extended family came to learn form the backbone of the new series, *Mrs. Wilson. *Ruth explores how it felt to play her own grandmother on screen, and what it means to be a tragedienne in film.

*Warning: This episode contains spoilers for Episode Eight of Season Three of *Victoria. Victoria star Jenna Coleman lead a smashing third season of the series, with her royal character growing in roles both maternal and majestic. As the season wraps up, Coleman explores how the young Queen struggles to keep control of her country and her growing family, and reflects on the highlights of a thrilling eight episodes. sV2WxPFouPY0AOuFawv6

*Warning: This episode contains spoilers for Episode Seven of Season Three of *Victoria. The scheming Princess Feodora snuck into Buckingham Palace early in the third season of Victoria, surprising her half-sister, the Queen, and continuing to lurk in the background of the main royal drama. Actor Kate Fleetwood credits her just-so German accent for helping her sink into the role, but she also acknowledges she feels a certain kind of sympathy for the dastardly half-sister with few real friends. She talks Feo, Lady Macbeth and birthday cake in a new podcast episode.

*Warning: This episode contains spoilers for Episode Six of Season Three of *Victoria. Actor Alex Jennings calls himself “a common boy from Essex,” but his career on stage and screen has included at least four different royal roles. Victoria’s scheming King Leopold offers new insight into his role on the series, where he looks for inspiration when playing real-life characters, and why he sees Leopold as both a kingmaker and a puppet master.

*Warning: This episode contains spoilers for Episode Five of Season Three of *Victoria. Laurence Fox is well known to MASTERPIECE viewers after his eight seasons on the beloved series *Inspector Lewis*, so his appearance on Victoria as the devious UK Foreign Secretary, Lord Palmerston, is a welcome return to the screen. Fox offers hints as to how he and actor Jordan Waller got up to mischief on set, as well as how the cane-twirling Lord Palmerston came to find himself with a cane in the series.

*Warning: This episode contains spoilers for Episode Four of Season Three of *Victoria. The irascible Nancy Skerrett snuck into her job as a dresser at Buckingham Palace under an assumed name, and came to win Queen Victoria’s heart in the past three seasons of the show. And as part of the audience-favorite couple, “Skerrettelli,” actor Nell Hudson has won viewers’ hearts as well. Hudson tells us why her Nancy Skerrett is an inspiration in her own daily life, and what she’s learned from playing so many period-drama characters in her career.

*Warning: This episode contains spoilers for Episode Three of Season Three of *Victoria. From the very first episode of MASTERPIECE’s *Victoria, *Lady Emma Portman has been the center of royal intrigue, even if very little of the drama focuses on her. Lady Portman knows who loves who, who spurned who, and what Queen Victoria is really thinking as political favors wax and wane. Actor Anna Wilson-Jones relishes playing the dignified Emma, and has fun dishing the fictional royal gossip. Wilson-Jones charmingly reveals all that she knows on the podcast.