Cora Crawley, Countess of Grantham

American-born and married into the English aristocracy, Cora presides over Downton as its Countess, a wife devoted to her husband Robert and a mother anxious for her three daughters' futures. She is warm where the family's traditions are rigid, practical where they are proud, and quietly aware that her own fortune is what keeps the estate standing.

Elizabeth McGovern plays Cora with a gentleness that could easily read as softness but never quite does; there's steel under the graciousness, especially where her daughters are concerned. The writing uses her outsider status well, letting her ask the questions the English characters are too bound by custom to voice.