STARZ's BECOMING ELIZABETH
- Romola Garai, Oliver Zetterström, Jessica Raine, Tom Cullen, John Heffernan, Jamie Parker, Jamie Blackley, Jacob Avery, Alexandra Gilbreath, Leo Bill, Bella Ramsey, Ekow Quartey, Alex Macqueen and Olivier Huband have joined the cast of the upcoming drama starring Alicia von Rittberg.
- Garai (The Hour) will play Mary, King Henry VIII's eldest child, daughter of his first wife, the Spanish princess herself, Catherine of Aragon. Mary is equally devoted to her God and her little brother the King and it cleaves her in two that her twin devotions are entirely incompatible. For if she honors one, then she dishonors the other.
- Zetterström (The Midnight Gang) will play Edward, Henry's youngest child, but as a boy, the only one that matters in the brutal wars of Tudor succession. Determined to not be seen as a child, despite the overbearing Lord Protector and to bring his country into a new Protestant age, by force if necessary.
- Raine (The Informer) will play Catherine Parras, Henry's widow, a clever and educated woman, who played the part of Regent once during Henry's illness and bitterly resents that she is not able to play it again. As the young King ascends to the throne, Catherine is left on the sidelines, but is at last free to pursue her former lover, the King's uncle Thomas Seymour.
- Cullen (Knightfall) will play Thomas Seymour. Simultaneously charming, playful and funny whilst being hotheaded, ambitious and possibly dangerous, he expects the spoils that ought naturally fall to the King's uncle. His ambitions are ruined by the machinations of his older brother Edward Seymour, the Duke of Somerset who quickly seizes the position of Lord protector to the new boy king. He marries his former lover, the dowager Queen Catherine, for both power and love but then his eye falls on the teenage Elizabeth (Rittberg) and a whole new pathway to power opens up in front of him.
- Heffernan (The Pursuit of Love) will play the Duke of Somerset. Quick off the block when the old King dies, he loses he time in claiming the position of Lord Protector for himself. He is to all intents and purposes the de facto monarch during Edward's childhood and teenage years. Humorless and ruthless, he is the opposite of his younger brother, Thomas.
- Parker (1917) will play John Dudley, Somerset's right-hand man on the Privy Council, his fixer and enforcer and oldest friend. A family man, seemingly the friendlier face of the pair but then a darker side begins to emerge.
- Blackley (Greed) will play Robert Dudley, John's eldest and favorite son, and Elizabeth's friend from childhood. Working as the king's groom, from being enamored with court life, he slowly starts to realize quite how dangerous a world he has been born into.
- Avery (Adult Material) will play Guildford Dudley, John Dudley's son and Robert's little brother, also working for the King but still very much his father's forgotten son.
- Gilbreath (Tulip Fever) will play Kat Ashley, the nearest thing Elizabeth has to a mother since Anne Boleyn's execution when she was only two. A fountain of both sage and reckless advice, sometimes a scandalous gossip, she remains by Elizabeth's side until Elizabeth falls from grace and her service is no longer required.
- Bill (Rare Beasts) will play Henry Grey, a senior member of England's council. He is related by marriage to the Tudor line and never misses an opportunity to remind everyone. His daughter Jane is next in line after Elizabeth and Mary, and Henry has a plan to bring her closer still.
- Ramsey (Game of Thrones) will play Jane Grey, who is brought under Catherine and Thomas' wing, as part of their and her father's plan to marry her to the king. Young, serious, clever and staunchly Protestant, she has a clear sense of her own place in the world: as near to the throne as she can get without sitting in the king's lap.
- Quartey (This Way Up) will play Pedro, a Black Spanish mercenary who sells his sword to the man (or woman) he thinks most worthy of it. He respects and values his friendship with Somerset and Dudley, men he has met on the battlefield many a time before.
- Macqueen (Sally4Ever) will play Stephen Gardiner, a Catholic bishop who begins the series having been confined to the Tower for his reluctance to accept England's shift to Protestantism. A wily politician devoted to three things: the princess Mary, the restoration of the Catholic faith and to keeping himself alive during the process.
- Huband (I Hate Suzie) will play Ambassador Guzman, the arrogant and cunning Spanish ambassador, one of the pillars of Mary's alternative court, the face of Mary's overseas allies.
