If you're used to seeing Dan Stevens as the genteel Matthew Crawley from Downton Abbey, which was the English actor's breakout role, you may get whiplash if you log onto Netflix right now.
The actor's 2014 movie The Guest, which he starred in shortly after exiting Julian Fellowes' classic period drama TV series, was added to Netflix UK on Tuesday, March 12 (its second stint on the streamer after being added in 2015). Within just two days of its upload, it had leapt onto the streamer's Top 10 most-watched movies list — at the time of writing it's sitting at #4, having displanted stalwart Dune which has been trending for weeks now.
The Guest stars Stevens as mysterious stranger David. This man shows up at the door of the Peterson family, claiming to be the best friend of their son Caleb who was recently killed in Afghanistan. They're quick to accept David as he proves a firm friend to each of them... however it slowly becomes clear that David has violent tendencies that eventually bring trouble upon him and the Peterson family.
A bloody action movie, The Guest was popular upon release and has continued to be relevant as a minor cult classic ever since. It was also the last of a string of low-budget actioners directed by Adam Wingard before he turned to big-budget Hollywood fare with his latest movie, Godzilla x Kong, hitting cinemas soon on Friday, March 29.
Dan Steven's David is a far cry from the Matthew Crawley that saw him rise to become a household name in 2010. Here he stabs, shoots and explodes his way through an action-packed story, all without becoming paralyzed as he was during his wartime stint in Downton Abbey. Don't watch The Guest expecting a similar character!
Stevens is no stranger to bloody characters, though, with a diverse career since Downton Abbey. He's been a faithless missionary in Netflix folk horror movie Apostle, schitzophrenic superhero in Legion, literal monster in Beauty and the Beast, Russian singer in Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga and even Charles Dickens in The Man Who Invented Christmas. One of his more recent roles was as a voice actor in The Boy and the Heron which won Best Animated Feature at the recent 2024 Oscars.
He's set to re-team with Adam Wingard in Godzilla x Kong where also he'll star with Rebecca Hall, who he played alongside in a stage production of MacBeth in 2002 when he was first discovered as an actor.
Once place where you won't see Stevens is in any of the more recent Downton Abbey productions including the 2022 movie and the upcoming ITV reboot, for reasons that'll be all-too-obvious for fans of the series.
