Ruth Wilson has played a devious serial killer in Luther and a grieving mother in The Affair, but her latest character is her most personal yet.
That’s because it’s family: The Jane Eyre star will play Alison Wilson in Mrs. Wilson, a new three-part drama based on a memoir by her own grandmother.
PBS’s Masterpiece unveiled the first trailer yesterday (November 12), showing the moment Alison discovers her late husband Alec Wilson (played by Game of Thrones‘ Iain Glen) had another wife.
What follows is an extraordinary tale of spies, bigamy and intrigue set in 1940s and 1960s London, made all the more incredible because it actually happened.
At first the thought of playing a member of her own family was more than a little daunting, Ruth recently admitted to Digital Spy.
“Early on, I felt, ‘Am I going to play her? Am I too close? Can I do this?’,” she said, “and I wished, a week into it, that there was someone else playing her. ‘Is Claire Foy available?'”
She hopes viewers will be able to ignore the connection, however. “I hope people will not constantly be thinking, ‘Oh, it’s Ruth playing her own grandmother,'” she told the Observer. “This is fiction and isn’t really me, or even my real grandmother.”
Mrs. Wilson will air on Masterpiece on PBS in 2019.
Are you intrigued by this?
