What Anna Bates From Downton Abbey Looks Like In Real Life
One mark of a great actor is being able to completely transform into a character, and it's safe to say Joanne Froggatt has achieved that and then some. "Downton Abbey" fans fell in love with her as Anna Bates, but despite how low-key her hair and makeup were for the period piece, we still can't help but do a double take when seeing her IRL. That'd be a double take in a good way, mind!
That Froggatt looks so different from her "Downton Abbey" character isn't particularly surprising, considering it was a period show. For the most part, she had her hair up, and it was also often concealed in a ruffled cap. Partially because of that, there've been a few occasions when we've seen her in other productions and needed a sec to realize who we were looking at, as many of her present-day jobs have styled her with long, loose hair. In her own day-to-day, Froggatt seems to prefer letting her hair down as well, though like her "Downton Abbey" character, she's told Harper's Bazaar she always wears a hat to and from work. Either way, in snaps of her downtime shared to Instagram, she often pairs them with laidback waves.
As for the rest of Froggatt's real-life look, she seems to go for barely-there makeup. Sure, she's made it clear countless times she can turn up the glam for red carpets and other press-heavy events (more on that in a minute), but when she's shared glimpses into her off-the-clock life, it's generally fairly minimal. That totally makes sense given her stance on tailoring her look depending on the setting. As she told Harper's Bazaar, "For me, confidence comes from feeling like you're dressing in the right thing for the right purpose." Anna would approve!
Joanne Froggatt has had some serious glamazon moments
While Joanne Froggatt has some things in common with Anna Bates, it's worth noting that she's also spoken about needing a clear delineation between her real life and the characters she's played. She told Harper's Bazaar that while she may take the odd piece of inspiration from them, she generally doesn't. "Often, by the time you finish playing a role, you actually want to leave the clothes and looks behind. ... You end up feeling like that person when you put it on, which is a little strange," she explained.
Froggatt also told Harper's Bazaar that during any production, she needed to get her costume, hair and makeup off to go back to her normal life. "I very much imagine I'm putting my character on, and then at the end of the day, when I take it off, I take my character off and I leave it at work," she said. Froggatt went on to note that she had a similar approach when it came to red carpet or event dressing. "Stepping out onto a red carpet or attending a press event is a similar version of that. You're still yourself, but a glossier iteration, so it's a slightly mixed version," she said. Well, glossy would be the correct term, because Froggatt's glam game is next level. We're talking wet looks, Old Hollywood blowouts, the most enviable slickbacks and more. Is it weird that we're getting teary-eyed just thinking of Anna Bates seeing the lewks and trying them out on Mary Crawley?
We will say that even when we're surprised by her looks, Froggatt is never unrecognizable on the red carpet, and even when her styling has our jaws on the floor, she doesn't look particularly different with or without makeup. The sign of a gorgeous woman, if ever there was one.