“The Thursday Murder Club” cast: All about the silver-haired sleuths in Netflix’s cozy new mystery

Key Points

• The Thursday Murder Club is Netflix’s new adaptation of Richard Osman’s best-selling mystery novels.

• The story centers on a quartet of cold case-obsessed retirees who begin investigating a murder at their retirement community.

• The stacked cast is led by a quartet of legends: Helen Mirren, Pierce Brosnan, Sir Ben Kingsley, and Celia Imrie.

Mysteries don’t get much cozier than The Thursday Murder Club, Netflix’s new adaptation of Richard Osman’s best-selling novel.

Chris Columbus, director of Home Alone and the first two Harry Potter films, helms the comedic caper, which follows an amiable gang of gumshoes who spend their golden years investigating cold cases. When a murder takes place at the Cooper’s Chase retirement village — their backyard — they decide to put their skills to the test.

The cast is led by a quartet of legends: Helen Mirren, Pierce Brosnan, Sir Ben Kingsley, and Celia Imrie, all seasoned veterans of film and television with decades of experience. “When it came to The Thursday Murder Club, there were four people that we wanted, [and our] first four choices agreed to do the film,” said Columbus in an interview with Entertainment Weekly.

Below, we dig into the central foursome, as well as the equally starry supporting cast. Read on for EW’s Thursday Murder Club cast and character guide.

01 of 11

Helen Mirren as Elizabeth Best

Helen Mirren is among the most celebrated actresses on the planet, having three Oscar nominations under her belt, in addition to her win for playing Queen Elizabeth II in 2006’s The Queen. Her mantle also holds a staggering five Emmys, four BAFTAs, and three Golden Globes.

Her screen resume spans five decades, with highlights that include Peter Weir’s The Mosquito Coast (1986), Peter Greenaway’s The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover (1989), and Robert Altman’s Gosford Park (2001).

In recent years, she’s found a home in the Fast & Furious franchise (2017–2023) as Queenie, the scheming mother of Jason Statham’s Deckard Shaw. She also starred with Harrison Ford on Taylor Sheridan’s Yellowstone prequel 1923 (2022–2025), and is currently gearing up for season 2 of Paramount+ hit MobLand (2025–present) with her Thursday Murder Club costar Brosnan.

Mirren leads The Thursday Murder Club as Elizabeth Best, a former spy and dogged investigator. Speaking with EW, the Oscar-winning actress cited her years starring on ITV’s Prime Suspect (1991–2006) as an influence on her performance.

“I’m not a very in-control, in-charge sort of person in real life at all, but I know that I can play that character,” she said. “I think from my years of doing Prime Suspect, you know, playing Jane Tennison, that sort of no-nonsense, let’s-get-on-with-it, tough, controlling sort of person — I knew I could do it.”

02 of 11

Pierce Brosnan as Ron Ritchie

Pierce Brosnan played James Bond in four films between 1995 and 2002, though you may also know him from Mamma Mia! (2008) and Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again (2018). The actor has also earned ample acclaim for charismatic turns in The Matador (2005), The Ghost Writer (2010), and Black Bag (2025).

Currently, he stars alongside Mirren on MobLand, and is slated to appear with Lily James in Jaume Collet-Serra’s upcoming Cliffhanger reboot.

Brosnan plays Ron Ritchie, a retired union leader, in The Thursday Murder Club. The dashing Irish actor, who described his character as “a bit like a bull in a china shop,” while speaking with EW.

“He is a very passionate man that comes from a very strong background of unionism and fighting for the working man and fighting for his fellow man,” he continued.

Columbus, who’s worked with Brosnan numerous times over the years, including on Mrs. Doubtfire (1993), lauded the actor’s comedic chops. “Comedically, Pierce has this not-untapped talent, but a lot of times people do not get the opportunity to see how funny Pierce really is.”

03 of 11

Sir Ben Kingsley as Ibrahim Arif

Sir Ben Kingsley was a veteran of British television when he played Mahatma Gandhi in Richard Attenborough’s Gandhi (1982), a role that earned him an Academy Award, a BAFTA, and a Golden Globe. Since then, he’s received three more Oscar nominations for incendiary performances in Bugsy (1991), Sexy Beast (2001), and House of Sand and Fog (2004).

In recent years, he linked up with beloved filmmaker Wes Anderson for a pair of short films, The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Poison, both released in 2023. He’s also slated to star in Terrence Malick’s upcoming Biblical epic The Way of the Wind, and to reprise Trevor Slattery, his character in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, for the Disney+ series Wonder Man.

Kingsley, who was appointed a Knight Bachelor in 2002, joins the Thursday Murder Club as Ibrahim Arif, a retired psychiatrist.

“He’s a man who wishes to understand others and wishes to be understood in his counsel towards them,” Kingsley told EW of his character (and his character’s deliberate pattern of speech). “Therefore, I think he chooses his words and cadences very carefully. So they land on the ear gently, but with authority.”

04 of 11

Celia Imrie as Joyce Meadowcroft

Celia Imrie’s career spans five decades, including dozens of roles in British and American television with starring turns on Better Things (2016–2022) and The Diplomat (2023–present).

You may also recognize her from all four films in the Bridget Jones franchise (2001–2025), in which she played Una Alconbury. Up next? A spot on The Celebrity Traitors, a spinoff of the popular reality series.

Imrie rounds out the core quartet of The Thursday Murder Club as Joyce Meadowcroft, an excitable nurse.

“I love her adventurous spirit, I suppose,” Imrie told EW of the character. “I took to her straight away in the book. The great Laurence Olivier always used to say, ‘You have to really love the person you are playing.’ And I did.”

05 of 11

Naomi Ackie as Donna De Freitas

Naomi Ackie rose to prominence alongside Florence Pugh in the acclaimed drama Lady Macbeth (2016). She went on to win a BAFTA for her leading turn on The End of the F***ing World (2019).

Her other notable credits include Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019) and I Wanna Dance With Somebody (2022), the latter of which she starred in as the late Whitney Houston.

Over the past few years, she led Zoe Kravitz’s horror-comedy Blink Twice (2023), costarred in indie hit Sorry Baby (2025), and appeared opposite Robert Pattinson in Bong Joon Ho’s Mickey 17 (2025).

Ackie costars in The Thursday Murder Club as Donna De Freitas, a police officer who gets roped into the club’s investigation.

“I grew up watching them — and they are still so enthusiastic,” she said of the film’s legendary lead quartet in a chat with The Times. “I never dreamt that they’d be calling me Nay.”

06 of 11

Daniel Mays as DCI Chris Hudson

Essex native Daniel Mays began his career on long-running British soap EastEnders (2000) before becoming a TV regular on shows like NCS: Manhunt (2002), Ashes to Ashes (2010), and Code 404 (2020–2022).

He also appeared in the acclaimed Red Riding trilogy (2009), a gripping (and fictionalized) look at Yorkshire amid the serial killings that haunted the area throughout the 1970s and 1980s.

Over the past decade, Mays has appeared in several high-profile projects, including Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Good Omens (2019), and the Apple TV+ series Franklin (2024). Currently, he stars on the Hulu crime drama A Thousand Blows (2025).

Mays joins Ackie as Chris Hudson, a deputy chief inspector who finds himself crossing paths with the Thursday Murder Club.

Speaking with Far Out Magazine, Mays described Hudson as a “middle-aged, divorced, sad sack detective,” adding that he “latched onto the physicality of the character” and his penchant to “comfort eat.”

07 of 11

David Tennant as Ian Ventham

Scottish actor David Tennant is a veteran of numerous beloved franchises, most notably Doctor Who, on which he played the title character in multiple live-action, audio, and animated iterations between 2005 and 2023.

Of course, Tennant is also known for his role as Barty Crouch Jr. in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005), as well as the voice of Scrooge McDuck in the latest riff on DuckTales (2017–2021) and as Crowley on Amazon’s Good Omens (2019–present).

The actor will next appear in The Hack, a ripped-from-the-headlines ITVX crime series also starring Toby Jones and Robert Carlyle.

Tennant costars in The Thursday Murder Club as Ian Ventham, the callous, money-hungry co-owner of Coopers Chase.

08 of 11

Tom Ellis as Jason Ritchie

Tom Ellis is best known for spitting fire in the title role on Fox’s Lucifer (2016–2021), a role he also played in the Arrowverse (2019). Over the past several years, he featured on Tell Me Lies (2024) and Washington Black (2025), both of which air on Hulu.

He’s currently slated for a leading role on the upcoming CBS procedural CIA.

Ellis’ Jason is one of the shadier characters occupying the Thursday Murder Club, a bad-boy biker and ex-boxer whose found a career in reality television. He’s also the son of Brosnan’s Ron.

“When I read the novel, I remember being overcome with emotion from time to time,” Ellis told Parade. “Even though it’s a really funny novel, [it has poignant moments] because it deals with very human stuff. It deals with people really confronting the end of their lives.”

09 of 11

Henry Lloyd-Hughes as Bogdan

A veteran of stage and screen, the London-born Henry Lloyd-Hughes made his film debut as Roger Davies in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005).

He went on to star in a pair of lofty literary adaptations — Joe Wright’s Anna Karenina (2012) and Sophie Barthes’ Madame Bovary (2014) — and appear in Now You See Me 2 (2016) as the mysterious Allen Scott-Frank.

Most recently, he starred alongside Logan Lerman and Joey King on Hulu’s We Were The Lucky Ones (2024).

He appears in The Thursday Murder Club as Bogdan, who the actor described as “a slightly unknowable figure who’s not like any of the other characters.”

Speaking at the film’s U.K. premiere, he added, “He’s a tough guy and he’s had a hard life, but at the same time, you don’t want to play that with an entirely rigid exterior and nothing going on underneath.”

10 of 11

Jonathan Pryce as Stephen Best

Welsh actor Jonathan Pryce was an award-winning stage actor when he found success onscreen as the lead of Terry Gilliam’s cult satire Brazil (1985).

He’s since worked with a number of brilliant filmmakers, including James Foley (Glengarry Glen Ross), Martin Scorsese (The Age of Innocence), and Terrence Malick (The New World). His work on Fernando Meirelles’ The Two Popes (2018) nabbed him an Academy Award nomination.

Pryce has several big-budget franchises under his belt as well, including Pirates of the Caribbean (2003–2007) and Game of Thrones (2015–2016). He also squared off against Brosnan’s James Bond as the baddie in 1997’s Tomorrow Never Dies.

In addition to his Oscar nomination, Pryce has two Tonys and two Laurence Olivier awards to his name, as well as nominations for five Emmys and three BAFTAs. He was bestowed with a knighthood for his services to drama in 2021.

Pryce plays Elizabeth’s husband, Stephen, a former academic and chess enthusiast who struggles with dementia. It was a personal role for Pryce, who’s an ambassador for the Alzheimer’s Society.

“While I tend not to base my portrayal on anyone in particular, I have lived through a loved one losing their memory,” Pryce said of the role. “My beloved Aunt Mair had dementia at the end of her life.”

11 of 11

Richard E. Grant as Bobby Tanner

The prolific Richard E. Grant rose to fame as the star of U.K. comedy staple Withnail and I (1987). He remains busy as an actor, writer, and host to this day.

His long resume includes roles in Francis Ford Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1991), Jane Campion’s The Portrait of a Lady (1996), and James Mangold’s Logan (2017), as well as enduring comedies like Spice World (1997) and Girls (2014).

Since scoring an Oscar nomination for his performance in Marielle Heller’s 2018 drama Can You Ever Forgive Me, Grant has been particularly busy. In the last few years alone, he’s appeared in films such as Saltburn (2023), Argylle (2024), and Death of a Unicorn (2025), as well as Lena Dunham’s Netflix series Too Much (2025).

Here, he plays Bobby Tanner, which he admitted in an interview at the U.K. premiere is a brief but impactful role.

He also spoke about his experience reading Osmon’s book series. “Not many people on the planet of my age haven’t read them,” he cracked. “It’s a great tradition in English crime literature, of having [villages] where people are murdered every single week. And, as a nation, we seem to find that charming and delightful, whereas [in] the American equivalent there’d be machetes, car chases, and machine guns. But ours is very sedate.”

Where can I watch Thursday Murder Club?

The Thursday Murder Club is now streaming on Netflix.

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