Sophie Okonedo will play Queen Margaret in the BBC trilogy of films, The Hollow Crown – Queen Margaret being the queen who curses co-star Benedict Cumberbatch’s Richard III.

As Henry VI’s widow, she railed against Richard III, cursing him and his offspring, because he killed her husband.

Drawn from Shakespeare’s Henry VI trilogy and Richard III, The Hollow Crown will be filmed, starting this September, for a 2015 broadcast.

The first series of The Hollow Crown starred Ben Whishaw, Jeremy Irons and Tom Hiddleston and was a major success for BBC2 when it aired. 

The brainchild of Sam Mendes and his Neal Street Productions, Dominic Cooke will direct all three of the new Hollow Crown dramas.

Ms Okonedo will take on the role once her run in A Raisin In The Sun ends on Broadway on June 15, for which she’s received a Tony nomination. The sadly-underused actress (although she works consistently outside the USA, on stage and screen) recently booked a co-starring role a new Wall Street-set CBS drama series from the writers of Justified, which follows a smart and sophisticated Wall Street hedge fund trader who served his country in Iraq, who wants to do good. Okonedo signed up to play a character named Bryce, described as a woman who’s deeply committed to her work as an assistant attorney general, tasked with the responsibility of heading a task force investigating Wall Street firms.