Q&A with Phyllis Logan, a.k.a. ‘The Puzzle Lady’ premiering tonight on KERA TV! | Tellyspotting

Q&A with Phyllis Logan, a.k.a. ‘The Puzzle Lady’ premiering tonight on KERA TV! | Tellyspotting
There’s a new ‘cozy mystery’ airing on PBS stations in 2026 as
Downton Abbey
‘s Phyllis Logan stars in the 6-part series,
The Puzzle Lady
, based on the best-selling novels of Parnell Hall. Hall wrote 20 installments of the Puzzle Lady Mysteries spanning from 1999-2019.
The series premieres tonight at 7pCT on KERA TV in North Texas
and is airing on a number of PBS stations across the country (check local listings). The series is also available for binging anytime, anywhere streaming on
PBS Masterpiece on Prime Video
, the PBS App, and
PBS Passport
The set of 6-episodes revolves around
The Clue for the Puzzle Lady
and follows Cora Felton, played brilliantly by Phyllis Logan, better known as the celebrity ‘puzzle lady’ who, along with her gin-and-cigarette habit, sports a particular expertise at solving crosswords, which takes on an unexpected and macabre relevance to a police investigation.
We recently had the great good fortune to sit down with Phyllis Logan to talk about her transition from her role as Mrs. Hughes, keeper of the downstairs on
Downton Abbey
to her newest role as Cora Felton as she relocates from a small New England town in Hall’s books to the quaint English village of Bakerbury (who would have ever imagined that there could possibly be murders in a small English village!).
Tellyspotting:
Your character of Cora Felton is clearly a departure from one of your most iconic efforts that so many of us are familiar with in Mrs. Hughes in
Downton Abbey
. Can you introduce us to Cora?
Phyllis Logan:
Well, she’s known as the puzzle lady and has become a bit of a local treasure, a national treasure, as it were, in England. She’s very flamboyant. She likes a vodka for breakfast and likes to light up cigarettes here and there. She’s quite a force to be reckoned with. But, she’s very fun, and it was a wonderful part to play.
As the series progresses, when she gets a sniff of trying to solve any crimes, she discovers that actually she’s quite adept at it. Cora finally discovers that she is good at something, and she’s very dogged and won’t let things go, even putting herself in danger the whole time. So,
needless to say (with a bit of a laugh), she’s not exactly the most strait-laced of characters I’ve ever played.
Tellyspotting:
Well, maybe not as strait-laced but what I thought was interesting, and you can tell me I’m a bit off, but as I was watching
The Puzzle Lady
and with
Downton Abbey
returning to PBS on May 17, I kept thinking that, just maybe, I see kind of the same twinkle in Cora’s eyes, as I did every so often in Mrs. Hughes’.
Phyllis Logan:
Well, it is me playing both characters and I do think there’s always in whatever character you play an element of oneself in the character. So, I’m not surprised that you can pick up some elements of Mrs. Hughes in Cora Felton, because she does have a twinkle. For sure, with Mrs. Hughes, although she’s quite firm and she’s a bit more strait-laced than Cora Felton, certainly, there are elements there, you’re quite right.
Tellyspotting:
With the series being based on a book, do you find that when you approach a role, is it more limiting whe you already know something about a character because it’s based on a character from a book? Is there less freedom to make it your own?
Phyllis Logan:
To some extent, yes. I was told, however, that it isn’t really as close to the original book as one might expect. Dominique Maloney, who wrote all the scripts, has very much got her own take on the storylines and on the character, so I didn’t feel bound by anything in that respect.
I really just stayed to the scripts as they were presented to me each episode. I just found out who the character was as it was there on the page and so I just had free reign with that. And I suppose, I was just playing myself, really, but with a bit more heightened drama.
Tellyspotting:
Do you find that it helps you in a role such as this or in anything else have you done even dating back to
Lovejoy
that you know a little bit about a character that is beyond what is on the script. Does that help you to understand a backstory or you create your own backstory to a certain extent?
Phyllis Logan:
You like to think that you have what’s on the page, but in reenacting the script, you hope that you bring an extra element to it of truth and believability whether it be drama, comedy or whatever.
That said, you do try and transcend the script, in a sense, although, I have to say, I thought the way not just my character, but all the other characters were portrayed was marvelous job. I felt that everybody took what was on the page and absolutely ran with it and excelled.
Tellyspotting:
What I loved about
The Puzzle Lady
, is that there seems to be a genuine willingness over the course of time where the police actually enjoy you working with them, as opposed to an attitude of ‘…what could you possibly know about solving crimes?’
Phyllis Logan:
I did enjoy the intermingling between the police, even though we do lock horns from time to time with the old inspector. But even he has to admit that she does a good job. She doesn’t do it in the conventional sense, the solving of it, but it’s quite unconventional. But she does get the results so even he has to concede that and that is fun to watch him concede that.
Tellyspotting:
This is different for you from
Downton Abbey
, as you are ‘the puzzle lady’, you’re in everything, you’re in every shot all the time. That said, the importance of having a really good ensemble cast, like
Downton
, I think it what came through watching
The Puzzle Lady
, is how well you all mesh together.
Phyllis Logan:
We had such fun. It was hard work, but everybody I thought was fabulous, and we all got on so well and had such a laugh together. And of course, Charlotte, who played my niece, we just had a great rapport. It was wonderful to do our little our scenes together. We would do a bit of improv and all that. It was great fun. And she was a wonderful to work with.
Tellyspotting:
You get a chance to work with your husband in
The Puzzle Lady
. Is that the first time you both have worked together?
Phyllis Logan:
Actually, my husband was also in Downton Abbey. In fact, that was quite amazing. He said to me at one point, they phoned me up and said, ‘…I’ll be home soon, have you finished filming’? I was at Ealing Studios, I think I was doing Downton at the time.
And he said, I’ve got this new job. I said, Oh, what? What’s the job? He said, it’s Downton. I said can we forget this? Just tell me what the blooming job is.
It’s Downton, he said again. The producer didn’t even mention it to me. I said, well, it’s going to be like bring your husband to work.
When he came on to The Puzzle Lady, that’s another one I didn’t know about. He wasn’t busy at the time, so he thought it’d be great to just jump in and do a couple of scenes, and I got to slap him across the face, which was great fun.
Tellyspotting:
Even though we are just getting series 1 in the States, is there the possibility that a second series might happen?
Phyllis Logan:
Unfortunately, I don’t know. One hopes so because I think we would all love to do another one. And it certainly has got legs and I would definitely be up for future shenanigans
and
I think we would all be chomping at the bit to do another one.
Tellyspotting:
Finally, it’s no secret that I’m a big fan of
Desert Island Discs
, and I do wonder what would you take?
Phyllis Logan:
Well, I was born in the 50s so my music is probably in the 70s more than anything else. I do love Madonna. I used to have that as my ringtone, but I even got fed up with it all the time, and my husband kept pleading with me, could you please change your ring tone?
So now, he’s got his own personal one. When he rings me, it’s the theme to Pirates of the Caribbean. And when I ring him, the Downton Abbey theme tune comes on his phone.
Tellyspotting:
Just the thought of being in England in the late 60s, early 70s and the music that came out of there at that time, I’m very envious.
Phyllis Logan:
Well, I was still in Scotland at this point, which was a different thing altogether from London. I was in a small town outside of Glasgow, but I certainly did enjoy listening to all the 70s music.
Tellyspotting:
Sadly, for me, my last question deals with
Downton
. I always wondered, because of your position, would you rather be upstairs or downstairs?
Phyllis Logan:
I think I’d prefer to be downstairs. The Crawleys were quite unusual in the sense that not all people in big houses were as benign as they were. It was particularly quite a harsh and cruel life, mostly downstairs, but obviously in
Downton Abbey-
land, everybody’s lovely to the staff, which wasn’t the case, historically speaking.
In filming, however, we were allowed to have more fun downstairs because we were in the studio mostly. And you know, you can take walls down. You don’t have to up at Highclere. you’ve got to be so careful. You can’t sit on this, you can’t touch that. You can’t do that. It was quite restricting to be filming in that place, really. In the studio, you didn’t have to watch your P’s and Q’s or be careful. It allowed us more freedom and liberation.
At that point, I had to reluctantly say goodbye to an absolutely delightful individual. I did get the sense that there is a lot of Cora Felton in Phyllis Logan. I could definitely sense that twinkle in her eye as she talked both
Puzzle Lady
and
Downton Abbey
One can only hope that we’ll see another series in the not-too-distant future. As Phyllis said, future shenanigans await.
Premiering tonight at 7:00p and airing weekly through May 28 on KERA in North Texas
The Puzzle Lady
is also streaming on
PBS Masterpiece on Prime Video
, the PBS App, and
PBS Passport
In:
Mystery
Related posts:
Downton Abbey's Mrs. Hughes headed upstairs to guest star on 'Bones'
Downton Abbey: Are you more upstairs or downstairs?
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