20 Underused Actors We Hope to See Break Out in 2017
By Amy Woolsey
Anna Chancellor in The Hour season 2, image courtesy of BBC
14. Anna Chancellor
Why you should know her: Maybe The Hour was doomed from the start. A drama revolving around a TV news crew in 1950s Britain, it had the misfortune of premiering during the height of Mad Men, and although the similarities were mostly superficial, it never managed to overcome them; BBC axed it after 12 episodes. It’s a shame because the show is terrific, a delightful mix of social commentary and pulp.
Also, it has a stellar cast, including Romola Garai, Ben Whishaw, and Dominic West. If you had to single out one person, though, it would be impossible not to choose Chancellor. As foreign affairs journalist Lix Storm, the gravelly-voiced actress instills the decidedly earnest show with a welcome dose of wit and worldly wisdom. She doesn’t merely reel off sardonic quips; she savors them, often with a cigarette or glass of whiskey in her hand. Still, she handles emotion with equal amount of aplomb, her eyes conveying half-a-lifetime of experience and disillusionment. Her last scene, which she shares with Peter Capaldi (doing a 180 from his profane turn in In the Loop), is a heartbreaker.
Of course, The Hour is just one entry in a filmography that dates back to 1990. Chancellor has also been Four Weddings and a Funeral, the Jennifer Ehle/Colin Firth Pride & Prejudice, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and Downton Abbey. But it’s hard not to feel like the world is missing out on something great. If someone cast her as the lead in a screwball romantic-comedy, she could probably revive the genre.
Upcoming projects: According to IMDb, she’s completed filming on an apocalyptic-sounding comedy called Love of My Life.