Who is Rina Mahoney? Sky's Mary & George actor starred in Yorkshire's Happy Valley and Emmerdale

Based on The King's Assassin, by Benjamin Woolley, Mary & George follows the story of George Villiers’, Duke of Buckingham, rise to power as lover of King James I.

In the show George Villiers, played by Nicholas Galitzine, is moulded and pushed by his mother Mary Villiers, played by Julianne Moore, to seduce the king, who Tony Curran plays.

As George rose rapidly through the ranks, his mother too benefitted.

She became known at court as an intimidating and forbidding character who strived to benefit and advance her family.

Although Galitzine and Moore play the main characters, many keen-eyed fans of Happy Valley or Emmerdale will have spotted a familiar face, Rina Mahoney.

In Mary & George Mahoney plays the character Laura Ashcattle a woman who works for the Villiers family and suffers a loss when Mary’s oldest son, John, kills her dog.

However, some fans will recognise the actor from her run on Yorkshire-based shows such as Happy Valley and Emmerdale.

In the Yorkshire crime drama, Happy Valley, Mahoney played the character Anisha Bhatti and in Emmerdale Mahoney played Nurse Chetna Stevenson.

The actor is not only well-known to many soap fans though, having also appeared in Channel 4’s Hollyoaks and BBC’s Doctors, she also starred in the ITV show The Bay and Sky’s COBRA.

In The Bay, Mahoney played the character Mariam Rahman, the mother of murder victim Saif who also has a strained relationship with her older son, Adnan.

In season three of the Sky show COBRA Mahoney worked alongside Robert Carlyle as Zelda Gere, CEO of private security company Rhombus Strategic Services.

The Mary & George actor also has a prominent background in theatre having starred in The Merchant of Venice and Othello, both for The Royal Shakespeare Company.

In The Merchant of Venice, she played the Duke of Venice, Portia's Servant whereas in Othello Mahoney played Citizen of Venice and the Messenger at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford upon Avon.