Sex, secrets and sinister cults: MOLLY WINDSOR on the new Netflix thriller that lifts the lid on life in Britain's hidden communities
At 28, Molly Windsor already has the air of someone who’s seen plenty of the acting world – and survived it. ‘Being a young woman, everyone assumes you’re naive or bright-eyed,’ she says laughing. ‘But I’ve actually been in this industry a long time.’
Windsor started acting at 11, won a Bafta at 20 and has quietly built a reputation as one of our most compelling performers, mentored by Oscar-nominated actor and director Samantha Morton. Now she’s stealing the spotlight again in Netflix’s new drama Unchosen, which lands globally this week – in the coveted spring release window previously occupied by hit dramas such as Adolescence and Baby Reindeer – and also stars British heavyweights Christopher Eccleston and Siobhan Finneran.
It’s the story of Windsor’s character Rosie, a devout young wife and mother living with her husband (played by Sex Education’s Asa Butterfield) in a secretive Christian cult in the English countryside – a closed world of strict modesty, rigid gender roles and hostility towards the outside world. Everything changes when a chance encounter with rugged escaped convict Sam (a convincing turn by brooding Les Misérables star Fra Fee) sparks Rosie’s desire. While the duties of the women in the sect amount to child-rearing, domestic chores and servicing their husbands, sex takes on a whole new meaning for Rosie as she pursues the passionate, dangerous affair.
Molly Windsor wears a coat, earrings, and necklace from Joseph
As well as shining a light into the world of British cults, of which there are estimated to be 2,000 – more than we have branches of McDonald’s, a situation described by experts as a ‘hidden epidemic’ – it’s a pacy thriller. Yet Windsor insists the atmosphere on set was far lighter than its subject matter might suggest. ‘You probably can’t tell watching it, because the content is very dark,’ she says, ‘but we had a real laugh.’
Sitting in the back room of a photo studio, Windsor is friendly if slightly guarded, with a thoughtful, almost ethereal presence. Petite at 5ft 1in, with long, tousled hair, pale skin and ice-blue eyes, she brings to mind the late style icon Carolyn Bessette Kennedy.
Yet nothing in Windsor’s background suggested she would become one of Britain’s most exciting actors. The daughter of a single mother from a working-class family, she grew up in a village outside Derby with her brother Josh, now 33, a police officer. Her father, she says, ‘isn’t in the picture’, so Windsor was brought up by her mother Beth, with her grandparents close by. ‘Me, my mum and my nan were a team of three,’ she says. ‘I thought about them a lot when we were making Unchosen. There’s a scene after a storm where all the women step in and cook dinner together – there’s a special sense of community that felt familiar to me.’
Having enjoyed trips to the theatre with her grandparents, aged 11 Windsor began attending Saturday acting workshops in nearby Nottingham. Here she met Morton, a native of the city, who chose her to be in a film she was directing based on her own experiences as a child growing up in the care system. The Unloved, which starred Windsor as an 11-year-old child navigating abusive parents and a chaotic care home, went on to win awards, with critics praising Windsor’s ‘gut-wrenching’ performance.
Molly getting steamy with Fra Fee in Unchosen
‘Samantha took me under her wing,’ Windsor says. ‘I’m grateful to her because she became my touchstone for how actors should be treated.’ The pair have stayed in loose contact and in 2022, Windsor played the younger version of Morton’s character Zelda Perkins in She Said, the film about disgraced Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein.
Morton is fulsome in her praise of Windsor. ‘Molly is an extraordinary actor,’ she says. ‘Her versatility is astonishing. I watch her career with such pride I could burst. She’s also an awesome, kind, wonderful human being of the highest order.’
Windsor is just one of a group of actors to emerge from similar Nottingham drama workshops – others include Skins’ Jack O’Connell, Line Of Duty’s Vicky McClure and Game Of Thrones’ Bella Ramsey. Yet today funding cuts have led to these initiatives either closing or coming under threat. ‘It’s such a shame,’ she says. ‘Those places actively encouraged people from different backgrounds, not just the stereotypical drama-school kids.’
After The Unloved, Windsor continued acting in films including hard-hitting drama Oranges And Sunshine, about the postwar scandal of child deportation to Australia, alongside Emily Watson. In between, she attended secondary school in Derby – which she ‘hated’. ‘On set I’d been spoken to like an adult and I loved that. Going back to school didn’t feel like a good fit,’ she says. She was happier at sixth form college, but – to her teachers’ consternation – refused to apply to university. ‘I just had blind faith that [an acting career] would happen.’ She started waitressing in a local café, but soon auditioned successfully for Three Girls, a 2017 three-part BBC drama based on the true story of the Rochdale grooming scandal, where police and child protection authorities turned a blind eye to the systematic abuse and rape of mostly white, working-class girls.
Blazer and trousers, Paul Smith. Necklace, Dior Jewellery. Bra, Free People
‘Since then I’ve worked with an amazing Derby-based charity, Safe And Sound, which helps prevent child sexual exploitation. Even now, girls come up to me in nightclub bathrooms to talk about Three Girls and what it meant to them.’
Soon after, she was named one of Bafta’s Breakthrough Brits alongside actors including Josh O’Connor (Prince Charles in The Crown) and Jessie Buckley, who won this year’s Best Actress Oscar for Hamnet. The following year, Three Girls won Windsor a Bafta for Best Leading Actress. ‘I was filming in a caravan park in Cornwall at the time,’ she recalls. ‘I turned up at the very last minute and suddenly I was at this overwhelming awards ceremony.’ Competition included Claire Foy and Thandiwe Newton. ‘So, I didn’t think I was going to win and was genuinely shocked when they read out my name.’
In the audience were her mother and brother, for whom she’d managed to bag last-minute tickets. ‘They were sat at the back. But Mum said to me afterwards, “Did you hear us scream when you won?” They were so proud.’
Hours later, Windsor was on an early flight back to Cornwall. Unsure whether airport security would let her Bafta statue through, she’d handed it to her brother. ‘He kept sending selfies with it on the train – then pictures of it sitting in his bedroom. But I’ve got it back now.’
What happened next was less glamorous than you might have expected – instead of another acting job, Windsor took on a stint waitressing. ‘I can make a good coffee – though it’s been a while now,’ she says. Sometimes customers recognised her. ‘I think the other staff enjoyed that more than I did.’
Molly won the leading actress Bafta in 2018 fo her role in Three Girls
Covid was one reason for the slowdown in her career. But Windsor also picks her roles carefully. ‘It’s a tricky balance and it can get disheartening,’ she says. ‘You have bills to pay and it’s already a hard industry. But if you don’t care about the work, what’s the point? Sometimes it’s better not to take something if it’s not the right fit.’
More recently she appeared in two series of the BBC forensic crime drama Traces opposite Martin Compston. Then came the call to audition for Unchosen, which looks certain to propel her to the next level.
The show’s fictional cult is deliberately unspecific but bears strong parallels to the Plymouth Brethren Christian Church, which has about 55,000 members worldwide, 18,000 in the UK, and has been enmeshed in allegations of sexual abuse, coercion and treating women as second-class citizens.
Writer and creator Julie Gearey based Unchosen on her own experiences growing up in Southern England, where religious sects and cult-like communities were relatively common. ‘I was always intrigued about the lives of the women within these groups and the sense that their world was hidden from view,’ says Gearey.
‘As the world becomes increasingly uncertain, the simple promises of purpose and community are appealing’. But joining such groups carries serious risks. ‘They can be coercive and controlling and strip members of their autonomy. Unchosen sits in that tension.’
Although Windsor has been making her name in powerful dramas, she admits she’d love to do a romcom. ‘I’d love something light-hearted after all of this,’ she says with a laugh.
Cardigan, N Peal. Shorts, The Frankie Shop. Tights, Heist Studios. Necklace, bracelet and ring, Dior Jewellery. Trainers, Charles & Keith
There’s an exciting project on the horizon that Windsor can’t talk about, but for now, rather than relocating to London, let alone Hollywood, she’s still living outside Derby in her own place, near her mother’s, and enjoying country air and her new passion – hot yoga.
She won’t discuss her relationship status, simply saying, ‘After Unchosen, I was ready for a bit of quiet. It’s good to get back home, make a brew, do what you want – I’m nestling into that home life for the minute. It’s just nice to have a bit of breathing space and real life.’
She’s ambivalent about fame. ‘There are privileges attached, but if you bump into someone and your make-up isn’t done, or you’re just feeling a bit tired or grumpy, then you’re worrying about whether you’ve said the right thing.’
To Windsor, what matters more is connection. ‘When you’ve done a job you care about, and then someone goes, “I saw that!” or tells you something personal or important to them, it’s a gift.’
And for the viewer? Perhaps Unchosen’s director, Jim Loach, best articulates Windsor’s onscreen appeal. He says: ‘She still has that very special quality – a sense of a big interior world. You want to watch her, to know what she’s thinking.’
Unchosen is available to stream globally on Netflix from Tuesday 21 April
FOUR REAL-LIFE UK CULTS
The Ahmadi Religion of Peace and Light
Blending Islamic theology with conspiracy theories, this sect was founded by Abdullah Hashem, who claims to be the successor to Prophet Muhammad and Jesus. Its 100 followers, based in Crewe, are urged to sell their possessions and donate their salaries to the group.
The Bruderhof
Members of the Bruderhof Community
This radical religious community has two UK communes in Kent and East Sussex, where members live like early Christians, sharing income. They espouse strict teachings on sexual morality, gender roles and modest dressing.
Lighthouse
Set up in 2012 by businessman Paul Waugh, this life-coaching group was investigated by the 2023 BBC podcast A Very British Cult. Members were isolated from their families and encouraged to donate their life savings. It was shut down by the High Court in 2023, but the group still operates as Lighthouse Global, with a new focus on Christianity.
Twelve Tribes
Founded by Gene Spriggs in 1972, Twelve Tribes refers to itself as an ‘emerging spiritual nation’ whose members believe they are ‘disciples of the son of god’. The sect has faced allegations of child abuse, forced labour and corporal punishment.
Styling: Joanne M Kennedy.
Hair: Davide Barbieri at A-Frame using Leonor Greyl.
Make-up: Caroline Barnes using Dr Sam Skincare and Dior Beauty.
Photographer’s assistant: Kai Gurung.
Stylist’s assistant: Olivia Simmons.
