Penny Downie is an Australian actress known for her stage and television appearances in the United Kingdom. From 2017 until 2021 she played Ellen in the British TV sitcom Back. She plays the US ambassador’s house manager Frances Munning in the 2023 Netflix political thriller series The Diplomat.

Filmography

• 2026Boss Cat — Doris
• 2024The Jester from Transylvania — Mrs. Pennington
• The Diplomat — Frances Munning
• The Chelsea Detective — Hilary Carmichael
• Whitstable Pearl — Izzy
• Absentia — Valerie Chandris
• Back — Ellen
• 2017Breathe — Tid
• Houdini & Doyle — Mrs. Sulzbach
• 2016Jackie — Janet Lee
• 2016London Has Fallen — Home Secretary Rose Kenter
• The Crown — Duchess of Gloucester
• Siblings — Dr Barker
• Father Brown — Rev. Mother Augustine
• Ripper Street — Flora Gable
• Silk — Helen Guthrie
• Vera — Veronica
• 2011W.E. — Dr. Vargas
• Downton Abbey — Lady Sinderby
• 2009Hamlet — Gertrude
• 2009Invictus — Mrs. Pienaar
• New Street Law — Honor Scammel
• All About George — Evelyn
• 2005Falling — Hazel Kent
• 2005Murder in Rome — Caecilia
• 2005The Girl in the Café — Ruth
• Murder in Suburbia — Zenith
• 2004Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Silk Stocking — Judith Massingham
• 2003Byron — Lady Judith Milbanke
• Byron — Lady Judith Milbanke
• Trust — Anita Matteo
• Spooks — Prosecution QC
• The Cazalets — Sid
• Waking the Dead — Bonnie Yorke
• 2000The House of Mirth — Judy Trenor
• 1999Lost for Words — Aileen Longden
• A Certain Justice — Venetia Aldridge
• 1998Crime and Punishment — Katerina
• 1997Food of Love — Mary
• The Ice House — Phoebe Maybury
• Madson — Anderton
• Kavanagh Q.C. — Mrs. Rosalind McEnery
• 1994Paradise — Linda
• Stages — Linda
• Underbelly — Barbara Manning
• 1991Ex — Sheila
• Stanley and the Women — Susan Duke
• Agatha Christie's Poirot — Frances Cloade
• Screen One — Sheila
• A Taste for Death — Kate Miskin
• Campaign — Sarah Copeland
• Inspector Morse — Nurse Wendy Hazlitt
• 1987Lionheart — Madelaine
• 1985Wetherby — Chrissie
• Dalgliesh — Kate Miskin
• 1982Crosstalk — Cindy
• Timewatch — Caecilia
• Minder — Dee Rogers
• Doobie and a Lil Cup of Coffee — Iris (voice)

Appearances as themselves (1)

• 2003Vivian Stanshall: The Canyons of his Mind — Self - Narrator