Meet The New Cast Members On Downton Abbey

Downton Abbey returns Sunday January 4th and there are lots of new faces to be seen in season five.

Though sadly we won't be seeing George Clooney as a regular cast member on PBS' hit show, we will be seeing new cast members as the new season unfolds.

Rade Sherbedgia as Prince Kuragin

Perhaps best known to American audiences as Dmitri Gredenko on 24, Sherbedgia is joining Downton Abbey as a blast from the Dowager Countess' past.

The price is a Russian refugee who flees the Bolshevik Revolution and ends up in England.

Producers say the chose Sherbedgia for his on screen presence, making sure he wouldn't get swallowed up by Maggie Smith on set.

Richard E. Grant as Simon Bricker

Grant has been in a number of TV shows and movies throughout the years including HBO's Girls and the BBC's Doctor Who, but this winter he'll take on a much less modern role as art expert Simon Bricker.

Bricker will visit the Downton estate to assess a Piero della Francesca painting owned by the Granthams. He'll also strike up a flirtation with Cora, which Robert is sure to hate!

He'll have to deal with it however, since Grant's character is said to stick around for four episodes.

 Anna Chancellor as Lady Anstruther

Actress Anna Chancellor is also stepping into Downton Abbey this season in perhaps the funnest of the three new roles. Chancellor will play the former employer of footman Jimmy and she'll come back into his life in the season opener tonight.

A sign that it will be an amusing interaction is the season five trailer where Lady Anstruther refers to Jimmy as "a very naughty boy."

The new season of Downton Abbey gets started  January 4th, at 9pm on PBS.