Anatomy of a Scandal’s penultimate episode hinges on a confrontation between prosecutor Kate Woodcroft (Michelle Dockery) and defendant James Whitehouse (Rupert Friend), on trial for the alleged rape of his former lover. It’s a brutal scene for Kate, but it also presented a technical challenge for Dockery: As an actor, she had never had so many lines at once. “Those moments in the courtroom scenes, I felt that those were the heart [of the show], [and also] some of the hardest to play, not only because I was trying to play it as authentically as possible, [but] also to do it justice and say more lines than I’ve ever said in my entire career,” the actor tells Krista Smith in a new episode of the podcast Skip Intro. 

According to Dockery, the scene she shared with Friend was “like, 38 pages long,” and director S.J. Clarke decided to keep the camera running to capture as many spontaneous moments as possible. “It was like doing a play,” Dockery says. [Kate] has to be so stoic in those scenes, and she knows that if she falters, the case could swing the other way. There is so much riding on her confidence that those were some of the most challenging moments for me. There is so much vulnerability that you feel when you walk onto a set and you're playing a character, an imposter syndrome sometimes creeps in, and you’re like, ‘How can I really do this?’”

Still, that masked vulnerability is part of what drew her to the character in the first place. Dockery compares Kate Woodcroft with Lady Mary Crawley, the character she portrayed for six seasons (and two movies) on Downton Abbey. “I love playing those types of characters who are seemingly one thing on the outside, but there’s something else going on underneath.”

Plus, she adds, getting to put on a barrister’s wig made it all worth it. “That’s one of the great things about being an actor: You get to sort of wear the shoes of these incredible people and experience what it would be like to be in this job for a living.” The lines are just the price of admission.

For more great celebrity interviews, check out Skip Intro on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.