Peter Townsend

An RAF war hero turned equerry to King George VI, Peter Townsend is quiet, correct, and devoted to duty. He becomes close to the young Princess Margaret through years of shared proximity at court, a friendship that begins in loyalty and discretion long before anyone else notices what it has become.

He's written as the embodiment of institutional restraint, a man whose whole bearing is trained obedience, which makes the private feeling underneath so much more affecting. Both actors play him with a stillness that says everything his position forbids him from saying aloud, and that tension is the character.