Antoinette Guise

Antoinette Guise belongs to one of the great noble houses circling the French throne, a woman whose loyalty is to family ambition first. She moves through the court with the composure of someone who has learned exactly how power is traded there, watching Catherine de Medici as both rival and measure of her own family's standing.

Beth Goddard plays her with the flinty calm of old aristocracy, someone who never raises her voice because she has never needed to. The show's court is full of people scheming loudly; Antoinette's stillness reads as the more dangerous strategy, and Goddard makes every quiet exchange feel like a chess move.