She’s young, scrappy, and hungry, and she’s in everything. Whether or not she’s your favorite actress, you have to admire her tenacity because Jenna Coleman has made a name for herself in historical costume TV, at least, and a few movies too. Born in just 1986 (JFC, I graduated from high school in ’87!), she’s already starred in two major British TV series and a bunch of historical TV movies. Imagine what else she will do!
Annie Desmond in Titanic (2012)
You gotta start somewhere!
Susan Brown in Room at the Top (2012)
Jaunty 1950s.
Clara Oswald in Doctor Who (2012-2015)
Not a historical show, but Coleman’s introduction was as a historical character — a Victorian governess — plus she and the Doctor revisited the 1880s.
As well as a ‘Murder on the Orient Express’ inspired 1920s episode. I love how she always got period-appropriate hair when they went back in time.
Rosie in Dancing on the Edge (2013)
A small but pivotal role.
Lydia Wickham in Death Comes to Pemberley (2013)
I love her grown-up version of Lydia, who is still ridiculous but in a believably older way.
Queen Victoria in Victoria (2016-)
And, of course, back with the second season of Victoria, and many more planned.
What do you think of Jenna Coleman’s historical costume TV roles?
She was in a British soap opera back in the early 2000s and I’ve had a bit of a crush on her ever since, tbh. I also love that she and Prince Albert (whatever his name is) are a couple in real life, for some reason that makes me enjoy Victoria more.
Oh, ha ha, just noticed that WCW stands for Woman Crush Wednesday (I thought the C was for candy). So I’m in the club!
Awww, how cute — I didn’t know that she & her co-star were dating :)
I know, right? Although there was a rumour at one stage that she was dating Prince Harry, which could have led to a weird royal hole in the space-time continuum (or something)…
Good for you, Jenna! He’s all kinds of hot.
A bundle of talent. One of my favourite Companions.
She gets on my nerves. she reminds me of Hugh Grant – lots of charm and easy to watch but no matter what you dress her in, shes the same person, always.
Clara. My second least favourite new Who companion. Wanted to beat her to death with a stick.
As for Victoria, she’s far too pretty and plays the character terribly.
Thank goodness I’m not the only one who has no love for her. One dimensional and way way too over exposed. Worst Victoria ever, and I vote her worst Companion — she’s the reason I stopped watching Who.
Martha will always be my least favourite.
Count me in . She does nothing for me, and Clara is my second least-favorite companion after Donna. (Actually, I don’t really like NuWho much anyway; I’m more of an old-school purist.)
And yes, she is totally physically wrong for Victoria.
Clara was a terrible character, all sassy manic pixie chirpiness and no personality, but Coleman isn’t totally bad. She has this captivating doll face and a lot of energy and she can deliver SOME lines in a convincing way (which is more than I can say for Karen Gillan). I think Coleman could maybe do well with a “sassy airhead” type of role where she actually gets some funny dialog — not just saying a lot of lines very quickly.
Clara seems to be pretty polarizing, and a lot of people dislike her. I am split on her as a character myself—I liked her with 11. But it seems like they didn’t really know what to do with her after a while. They didn’t give her much that was meaningful or interesting to do, but meanwhile kept hyping her like she was the messiah or something (they should’ve let the “impossible girl” thing run its course and then left it). However I felt like her character in Zygon Inversion (zygon who took Clara’s image) was really compelling (and quite different from Clara). But I didn’t find her that interesting overall by the end. Probably contributed to how much I like Bill.
I liked her her take on Queen Victoria. But I really enjoyed her as the older Lydia Bennet Wickham.
Don’t you mean JFRC?
I enjoy her Victoria but I was missing Billie Pipers on Dr Who to really give her a chance. And her Lydia made Death Comes to Pemblerley watchable.
Yeah I do agree about her Lydia — she was perfect in that role.
I hated Clara so much, but I like Jenna in general — I really enjoy her Victoria and she was marvelous as Lydia. Having Bill in Doctor Who made Clara a bit more tolerable; I tend to like companions better when I know when they’re leaving. :P
BTW, that Doctor Who Orient Express episode actually takes place in some future-oid time, and the train is, I kid you not, going through outer space.
Jenna was also one of the 1940s girls that Bucky rounded up to “double date” with him and Steve in the first Captain America movie.
No, really?! I’ll have to go back and see if I can spot her! I love Captain America!