Downton star Michelle Dockery to play the lead in Netflix Western Godless

Michelle Dockery, Godless — (Image credit: EMPICS Entertainment Limited Rig)

The former star of Downton Abbey Michelle Dockery is to star in another period drama. Netflix drama Godless is set in the American West and co-stars Brit Jack O'Connell

Downton Abbey star Michelle Dockery has signed up to star in a Western.

The actress, 34, recently ended her role as Lady Mary in Downton when the hit ITV show came to an end after five years of global success.

Now she has been cast as the female lead in a new period drama, Godless, a mini-series from Netflix to be broadcast next year.

*Michelle Dockery and Matthew Goode in Downton Abbey (ITV)*

British actor Jack O’Connell and The Newsroom star Jeff Daniels have also been cast in the period drama.

Michelle plays Alice Fletcher, the owner of a ranch where Roy Goode (O’Connell) is hiding from menacing outlaw Frank Griffin (Daniels).

Griffin terrorises towns across the West as he hunts for Goode, his mortal enemy. His chase leads him to a quiet town in New Mexico, which is mysteriously made up entirely of women.

Jack O'Connell — *Jack O’Connell (Anthony Devlin/PA)*

Ocean’s Thirteen director Steven Soderbergh is executive producing the drama.

Michelle next stars in the film The Sense Of An Ending with Jim Broadbent and Charlotte Rampling.

Internet TV network Netflix has enjoyed success with shows like House Of Cards, starring Kevin Spacey.

Patrick McLennan is a London-based journalist and documentary maker who has worked as a writer, sub-editor, digital editor and TV producer in the UK and New Zealand. His CV includes spells as a news producer at the BBC and TVNZ, as well as web editor for Time Inc UK. He has produced TV news and entertainment features on personalities as diverse as Nick Cave, Tom Hardy, Clive James, Jodie Marsh and Kevin Bacon and he co-produced and directed The Ponds, which has screened in UK cinemas, BBC Four and is currently available on Netflix.

An entertainment writer with a diverse taste in TV and film, he lists Seinfeld, The Sopranos, The Chase, The Thick of It and Detectorists among his favourite shows, but steers well clear of most sci-fi.