Entertainment

Downton Abbey star Michelle Dockery recalls her rock music past

The actress said she has been playing guitar during lockdown.
The actress said she has been playing guitar during lockdown. The actress said she has been playing guitar during lockdown.

Downton Abbey star Michelle Dockery has revealed she used to perform alongside a grunge band.

The actress is best known for playing aristocrat Lady Mary Crawley in the ITV period drama but has now told of her rock music past.

Dockery – an avowed fan of heavy metal groups Metallica and Slipknot – told US TV host Jimmy Fallon: “I wasn’t officially in a band but there was a band in my school when I was 15 and they were really grungy, sometimes a bit sort of metal.

Michelle Dockery
Michelle Dockery Michelle Dockery is best known for her portrayal of Lady Mary in Downton Abbey but revealed she performed with a rock band as a teenager (Ian West/PA)

“And I would sometimes be their guest appearance at pub gigs and I would do songs like Zombie (by) The Cranberries.”

Dockery – who revealed she has picked the guitar back up during lockdown – said she was into “teenage angst,” adding: “I did all of that. Doc Martens, dark eye makeup, the whole thing – long Alanis Morissette hair.”

The London-born star’s latest role is in TV crime drama Defending Jacob alongside Hollywood actor Chris Evans, best known for playing Captain America in the Marvel movies.

Dockery stars as the mother of a 14-year-old boy accused of murder, while Evans plays her husband.

The series was filmed on location near Boston, Massachusetts, and Dockery, 38, said she “fell in love” with the area.

She told The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon: “I loved it. Really, really, loved it, fell in love with the place.

“We shot in the suburbs, mainly, in some of the smaller towns but at weekends I got to go into the city and I got to go to a Red Sox game, which was amazing.”

Defending Jacob is streaming now on Apple TV+.