Brendan by Fanny

Saturday Magazine – August 31, 2019

Highlights:

‘We would walk up to the couples and start judging them like on Strictly,’ says Leech with a grin. ‘Michelle Dockery [Lady Mary] is an amazing dancer – if anyone could do Strictly, it’s her. And because the men had to wear long socks for the dance scenes, you get to see their legs. Hugh Bonneville has the most incredible calves.’

The worst dancer in the cast, it seems, was Simon Jones (the King), who ‘spent more time standing on the toes of the Queen [Geraldine James] than on the floor’.

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Staunton is married to Jim Carter, Downton’s former butler Carson (whose illness in the final season has miraculously disappeared) but insists that her inclusion in the film was ‘a bolt out of the blue. I’d only visited the set once before and there had never been any talk of me joining the cast.’

In fact, she and Carter, separated by the vast social divide of their characters, didn’t even have any scenes together. ‘Nothing at all,’ says Staunton. ‘He was at the other end of the dining room and I didn’t even get a glance, let alone have Carson pour me a glass of wine.

‘We rarely work together, so Jim and I got completely over-excited about getting in the car and driving to work. But I was very conscious of coming into his territory. The film is 90 per cent the regular cast.’

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Considering the excitement that has been bubbling ever since a Downton movie was announced last year, there have been surprisingly few plot leaks. ‘It’s been ingrained in us not to say anything,’ says Leech.

Tweeting is strictly forbidden – when Richard E Grant attempted to tweet on set he had to be forcibly stopped – although actor Dan Stevens, Lady Mary’s late and much-lamented husband Matthew Crawley, is a serial offender, even when he isn’t starring in it. He once prematurely tweeted a Christmas special (‘that was big trouble’) and last year sent fans into meltdown after tweeting a picture of him, Leech and Dockery with the caption: ‘Should Matthew have a moustache for the #DowntonAbbeyMovie..?’

‘He was trolling the fans with that one,’ grins Leech. ‘We both now live in LA and when Michelle came over, we all went for dinner, took the photo and posted it.’

Despite the code of omertà, Leech admits that during the last couple of seasons his character Tom Branson had slightly tailed off, but in the new film his role is key. Not only do Branson’s erstwhile Irish republican sympathies land him in trouble, but after years spent pining for his late wife, Lady Sybil Crawley, Branson finally gets some love.

The actress behind Lady Mary Talbot tells us about stepping back into her shoes, and some of her favourite moments from filming

By Bobbie Edsor, 30 August 2019                                                                                                               

Downton Abbey is back for one last hurrah on the 13 September – and we couldn’t be more excited.

After six series and almost four years on from the final episode’s airing, viewers have the opportunity to return to the grand rooms and bustling kitchens of Downton Abbey one last time for the feature length film.

Ahead of the film’s release, which sees Downton receive a royal visit that throws the corridors and kitchens into turmoil, we sat down with Michelle Dockery who plays Lady Mary Talbot to talk returning to set, what 1927 brings to Downton, and some of her favourite moments from filming…

Where did we leave Lady Mary at the end of the last series?

After going through a difficult time and being quite unhappy and angry at the world, Mary finally found happiness with Henry Talbot [played by Matthew Goode]. We left her in a good place, moving on with her life and embracing her position within the house as Estate Manager alongside Branson.

How is Mary doing in the film?

She’s in a place where she’s very unsure of where everything is going with Downton. In 1927, the houses were becoming vulnerable, and the future of Downton is uncertain. Mary’s in this place where she’s wondering, should we sell up and move to a smaller place and live a humbler life. She’s not really sure of the future.

And, of course, the news that the King and Queen are coming to visit throws everything into turmoil. She’s stressed about everything involved and takes it upon herself to take that position as chief organiser.

THE TIARAS HAVE BEEN DUSTED OFF AND THE PEARLS POLISHED. FOUR LONG YEARS AFTER THE FINAL INSTALMENT OF DOWNTON ABBEY, IT’S BACK, THIS TIME ON THE BIG SCREEN. BEN LAWRENCE WENT ON SET TO UNCOVER SOME FAMILY SECRETS

The Daily Telegraph

31 Aug 2019

As Downton Abbey sweeps majestically on to the big screen, Ben Lawrence joins the cast reunion on set

It is a crisp, clear morning at Wentworth Woodhouse, the stately home in South Yorkshire. Built by the 1st Marquess of Rockingham, it has the widest façade in Europe, boasts at least 365 rooms (no one is certain of the exact number), and represents two and a half acres of building. This perfect specimen of English baroque is the setting for the new Downton Abbey film – in which George V and Queen Mary tour the north of England (which also includes a visit to Downton itself, filmed as usual at Highclere Castle in Berkshire) – and today they are shooting a grand ball at the home of the Countess of Harewood in the film, attended by the royal couple and Downton’s Crawley family.

Inside the house, a production unit zigzags in and out of huge vaulted rooms with cables and film cameras, while extras in 1920s ball attire chat nonchalantly on makeshift chairs. Meanwhile in the ballroom – a giant marble space, adorned with deep-red damask wallpaper and enormous flower arrangements – Maggie Smith and Penelope Wilton (two of the stars of the original series) slip through the lines of dancing couples in diaphanous silks, as a small orchestra plays a waltz. In the background, an assistant producer is being told off by one of the volunteers of Wentworth Woodhouse for wandering into a disused room. This isn’t jobsworthiness. The carpet in some rooms is nearly 300 years old and will disintegrate

if anyone breathes on it. The wallpaper, meanwhile, is laced with arsenic (as was the fashion at the time) in order to make it a certain shade of green.

Away from the action, Michelle Dockery, who plays Lady Mary (the eldest Crawley daughter), is sitting in her trailer, her sharp features accentuated by period make-up, feeling slightly in awe of the whole process. ‘It was during my costume fitting when it hit me. I got really emotional.’

French TV 1985

Paris, 7 years ago…. Amazing, Wonderful, Unforgettable