PBS' 'Downton Abbey' Season 5 Spoilers: Richard E. Grant, Anna Chancellor, Rade Šerbedžija Join Cast! [WATCH]

With the new year commencing, it can only mean that Season 5 of the award-winning drama, Downton Abbey is about to begin on PBS. Viewers should get ready to meet Downton's new faces played by Richard E. Grant (Simon Bricker), Anna Chancellor (Lady Anstruther), and Rade Šerbedžija (Prince Kuragin).

As we previously mentioned, during the fourth season, we saw a widowed Lady Mary (Michelle Dockery) not ready to move on from Matthew's death, putting both Lord Gillingham (Tom Cullen) and Charles Blake (Julian Ovenden) on hold. Not only will these characters return, continuing their storyline, there were also new additions to the cast.

According to Entertainment Weekly, creator and exec producer Julian Fellowes will introduce a few new characters this upcoming season.

From Violet's past, Prince Kuragin (Šerbedžija) is a Russian refugee who flees the Bolshevik Revolution and lands in England. Fellows describes the batman Begins actor as "someone who is going to play quite a principal role opposite Maggie [Smith], and they go down memory lane, you do need a real heavyweight."

Simon Bricker (Grant) will strike up a flirtation with Cora (Elizabeth McGovern), which isn't likely to please Robert (Hugh Bonneville) at all.

Fellows also describes Chancellor's turn as Lady Anstruther, "partly comedic and quite touching."

Check out PBS's first look at Season 5 here:

As we previously mentioned, the Christmas special follows Lord Grantham (Bonneville) discovers what life at the abbey would be like had he never been born. In a laugh-out-loud turn of events, an angel presents him an alternate universe where everyone has drowned themselves in booze.

Though they were guest-stars on the episode, it doesn't mean the former Batman (George Clooney) and superstar agent Ari Gold (Jeremy Piven) are joining the cast.

Check out PBS official Season 5 trailer:

Season 5 of Downton Abbey premieres on PBS on January 4, 2015 at 9pm. Readers, are you excited to see the show back?