Penny Dreadful (TV series)

• Reeve Carney as Dorian Gray, a charismatic man who is ageless and immortal.[10]
• Timothy Dalton as Malcolm Murray, a hardened explorer of the African continent, on a deeply personal quest to save the remaining members of his family.[11]
• Eva Green as Vanessa Ives, an enigmatic, quietly driven heroine who proves herself a force to be reckoned with as she battles powerful, relentless forces from the underworld.[12]
• Rory Kinnear as the Creature, a creation Frankenstein abruptly abandoned, who, not given a name, variously uses the aliases Caliban and John Clare.[13]
• Billie Piper as Brona Croft / Lily Frankenstein, an Irish immigrant seeking to escape her brutal, violent past.[14]
• Danny Sapani as Sembene, a mysterious, long-time ally of Malcolm (seasons 1–2).[15]
• Harry Treadaway as Victor Frankenstein, an arrogant, socially inept young doctor whose ambition and research involve transcending the barrier between life and death.[16]
• Josh Hartnett as Ethan Chandler (born Ethan Lawrence Talbot), a charming, brash and daring American man of action with uncanny marksmanship, who detests violence, and is more complicated than he likes to admit.[12]
• Helen McCrory as Evelyn Poole, a professional spiritualist known by the alias Madame Kali who is secretly the leader of a powerful coven of witches called "Nightcomers" (season 2, recurring season 1).[15]
• Simon Russell Beale as Ferdinand Lyle, an eccentric Egyptologist (season 2, recurring seasons 1 and 3).[15]
• Patti LuPone as Florence Seward, an alienist or early psychotherapist treating Vanessa's depression (season 3; LuPone previously guest-starred as Joan Clayton in season 2)[17][18]
• Wes Studi as Kaetenay, an Apache with a connection to Ethan, who becomes an ally to Malcolm (season 3).[17]

• Olivia Llewellyn as Mina Harker, Malcolm's daughter and Vanessa's childhood friend who has been abducted (seasons 1–2).
• Alex Price as Proteus, a new creation of Dr. Frankenstein's, named after the literary character of the same name, who was killed by the Creature (seasons 1–2).
• Lorcan Cranitch as Inspector Goldsworthy, of the London police (season 1).
• Robert Nairne as the Vampire, an evil creature who leads a cabal of undead and who abducted Mina Harker (season 1).
• Olly Alexander as Fenton, a vampire minion (season 1).
• Graham Butler as Peter Murray, Malcolm's son, who died accompanying his father on one of his expeditions (seasons 1–2).
• Noni Stapleton as Gladys Murray, Malcolm's estranged wife and mother of Mina and Peter (seasons 1–2).
• Alun Armstrong as Vincent Brand, the leader of a troupe of actors in residence at the Grand Guignol (season 1).[13]
• Hannah Tointon as Maud Gunneson, an actress at the Grand Guignol, and object of the Creature's affection (season 1).
• Gavin Fowler as Simon, Maud's partner who mistreats the Creature (season 1).
• David Warner as Abraham Van Helsing, a haematologist and colleague of Frankenstein (season 1).
• Stephen Lord as Warren Roper, a Pinkerton agent hired to bring Ethan back to the United States (seasons 1–2).

• Sarah Greene as Hecate Poole, Evelyn's eldest daughter (seasons 2–3).
• Nicole O'Neill, Olivia Chenery and Charlotte Beckett as minor witches of Evelyn's coven. (season 2)
• Douglas Hodge as Bartholomew Rusk, a Scotland Yard police inspector investigating the grisly Mariner's Inn Massacre (seasons 2–3).
• Jack Hickey as the junior inspector working with Rusk (seasons 2–3).
• Jonny Beauchamp as Angelique, a mysterious transgender woman who gains Dorian's attention (season 2).
• David Haig as Oscar Putney, the owner of a struggling wax museum who employs the Creature for his own nefarious reasons (season 2).
• Ruth Gemmell as Octavia Putney, Oscar's wife who is uneasy about the Creature and treats him cruelly (season 2).
• Tamsin Topolski as Lavinia Putney, the blind daughter of the Creature's new employers, with whom he develops a specious friendship (season 2).
• Ronan Vibert as Geoffrey Hawkes, a rich landowner who fell under Evelyn's sway (season 2).

• Shazad Latif as Henry Jekyll / Hyde, a chemist and college friend of Victor Frankenstein.[17]
• Christian Camargo as Dracula, the brother of Lucifer who fell to Earth to feed on the blood of the living as the first vampire. In London, he takes the guise of kindly zoologist Alexander Sweet to captivate Vanessa.[17]
• Samuel Barnett as Renfield, Florence Seward's secretary who becomes involved with Dracula.[17]
• Sebastian Croft and Jack Greenlees as minor vampires serving Dracula.
• Casper Allpress and Pandora Colin as Jack and Marjorie, the Creature's son and wife from when still alive.
• Cokey Falkow as Scarman, a gunman in the service of Ethan's father.
• Jessica Barden as Justine, a homeless, brutalized young prostitute who becomes an acolyte to Lily.[17]
• Sean Gilder as Franklin Ostow, a marshal in the American West aiding Rusk in the hunt for Ethan.
• Brian Cox as Jared Talbot, a ruthless, powerful American rancher and the estranged father of Ethan.[19]
• Perdita Weeks as Catriona Hartdegen, a thanatologist scholar with expert knowledge of the supernatural.

Notable non-recurring cast include Mary Stockley as Victor Frankenstein's mother Caroline, Anna Chancellor as Vanessa's mother Claire, and Frank McCusker as Christopher Banning, a doctor overseeing Vanessa's treatment while institutionalized, all appearing in flashbacks during the first season, as well as Oliver Cotton as Father Matthew, having been requested to perform an exorcism on Vanessa in the first season's penultimate episode.

The first season of Penny Dreadful received positive reviews from critics, with a Metacritic rating of 70 out of 100 based on 37 reviews.[33] It holds an 80 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with an average score of 7.36 out of 10, based on 61 reviews, with the site's consensuses stating, "Skillfully shot and superbly acted, Penny Dreadful is perplexing in a good way – even if it's a bit silly at times."[34] The first season was described "as riotous as it is ridiculous, taking the macabre to new heights (or depths)" by The Guardian reviewer Ben Hewitt.[35]

The second season also received positive reviews from critics. On Metacritic, it has a score of 77 out of 100 based on 14 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[36] On Rotten Tomatoes, it holds a 100 percent rating with an average score of 7.65 out of 10 based on 20 reviews, with the site's consensus stating, "Penny Dreadful's second season maintains the show's intense, bloody drama, utilizing a vast array of fascinating characters and locales to tell a unique story."[37]

The third season received critical acclaim. On Metacritic, it has a score of 83 out of 100 based on 9 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim".[38] On Rotten Tomatoes, it holds a 93 percent rating with an average score of 8.1 out of 10 based on 15 reviews, with the site's consensuses stating, "Penny Dreadful is back for a beautifully bloody third season of ever-expanding mysteries and Gothic horrors."[39] Ben Travers of Indiewire gave it a "B+" grade and wrote, "Season 3's American-set storyline breaks things up nicely with some classic western elements mixed in with the show's established creature horrors, and the aesthetics of the production have never looked better."[40]

The series debuted to 872,000 viewers (1.44 million including re-runs). This number does not include the 900,000 viewers who previewed the series on Showtime on Demand and the Showtime app.[41]

In 2015, Titan Books announced a comic book series based on Penny Dreadful, written by co-executive producer Chris King and writers Krysty Wilson-Cairns and Andrew Hinderaker.[68] The first issue was released on May 11, 2016.[69] In October 2016, Showtime announced that a new series would be released in 2017, set six months after the finale of the TV series. The project will be written by King, illustrated by Jesús Hervás, and published by Titan Books.[70]

In November 2018, a spin-off series, Penny Dreadful: City of Angels was announced by Showtime. It is set in 1938 and centers on Mexican-American folklore and social tension of the era in Los Angeles, California.[71] The series started production in August 2019[72] and stars Daniel Zovatto, Nathan Lane, Natalie Dormer, Kerry Bishé, Rory Kinnear, Adriana Barraza, Michael Gladis, Jessica Garza and Johnathan Nieves. It premiered on April 26, 2020.[73] On August 21, 2020, the series was cancelled after one season.[74]