Pure Nostalgia: Downton Abbye

Created by Oscar-winning screenwriter Julian Fellowes, Downton Abbey was a phenomenally successful TV series set on a fictional country estate in Yorkshire in the early 20th century. Through six seasons, covering about fifteen years in fictional time, its inhabitants and staff were tested by a series of unexpected events: personal, social and political, which transformed the relationship between master or mistress and servant. The storyline gives equal attention to the two levels of the house: that of the aristocrats upstairs, with their luxurious clothes and lifestyle, and that of the hardworking men and women downstairs, who serve them.

a royal visit

The screen sequel takes place in 1927, around a year from when the series left off. It focuses on a high point in the household’s history, as British King George V and Queen Mary stop by for a visit, and centres particularly on what unites rich and poor: a sense of moral duty to family, society and also to oneself, as convention conflicts with the pursuit of happiness. While set in the north of England — which can be noticed by the accents of the staff —, the series and the movie were filmed at Highclere Castle in Newbury, Berkshire, in the south-west of the UK. Fellowes spoke about how strange it was for the cast to gather there three years after the series ended. 

Julian Fellowes (English accent):  There was something almost surreal about reassembling at Highclere. There we all were! I mean, I started writing this show ten years ago, which in our business is a very long time. Normally something lasts a few months and then it’s finished, so it was quite strange.

ESCAPISM

Hugh Bonneville plays Robert Crawley, Earl of Grantham. He says he had great fun reprising the role that made him a familiar face all around the world. 

Hugh Bonneville (English accent): It was just a miracle that we got here and it’s a testament to the team behind the show that they were tenacious enough to keep going until we all got together. My own experience is: pure escapism, fun, characters you care about and a world that is just out of our reach but not so historical that it seems like ancient history. 

A LOVING LENS

Elizabeth McGovern plays Lady Cora Crawley, the sweet-natured yet astute wife of the Earl of Grantham. The American actor stresses that their objective was to delight loyal fans of the series, as well as attracting new ones.

Elizabeth McGovern (American accent): It was our ambition to give the fans what they want so it’s all their favourite characters viewed again through a very loving cinematic lens and the stories are played out in the way that the fans love. It was a world people wanted to escape into, characters that they could get behind. 

RELATABILITY

Michelle Dockery plays Mary, the Crawley’s eldest daughter. In a real world that is in continual flux, she says, the characters’ timeless quality is reassuring. 

Michelle Dockery (English accent): The story and the characters that Julian created, the set design, the costumes, the nostalgia... These characters are very relatable to people. There’s something about people trying to be good and do right and I think people really relate to that. 

DO YOUR BEST 

Jim Carter plays the former butler Mr. Carson, who returns to Downton to help out with the Royal visit. One of the best-loved characters of the series, Carson is old-fashioned but his integrity is an example to younger staff members. The lack of cynicism in both series and film is refreshing, as the actor explains.

Jim Carter (English accent): The TV series was cinematic: there was always a big lush expensive feeling: the costumes and the design, the big house, the countryside, the balls. It trades on nostalgia, romance, it’s un-cynical, it’s about people falling in love, looking for happiness and doing their best.

SECRET LIVES 

Carson’s return ruffles the feathers of one of the most enigmatic characters in the series, Thomas Barrow, an ambitious footman-turned-butler, who will do anything to rise in the ranks. Yet his struggles with himself and his homosexuality make him a character deserving of empathy. Manchester-born actor Robert James Collier, who plays Barrow, praises one other member of the cast above all others: 

Robert James Collier (English accent): Romance, drama, pathos, humour... And then if you throw in an Oscar-winning screenwriter in Julian Fellowes and a double Oscar winner in Dame Maggie Smith, you can’t go far wrong.

EQUALITY ON FILM

Maggie Smith played the glamorous matriarch Countess Violet Crawley. Yet as director Michael Engler explains, while a hierarchy exists between the fictional inhabitants of the film, equal attention is paid to all in the screenplay. 

Michael Engler (American accent): I think there’s a spirit in it of kind of community both in the making of it and in the story of it, of people who from very different backgrounds, [of] different socioeconomic status, feel like they’re all part of something that’s connected in which they’re invested in each other.

MICHELLE DOCKERY – COOL CONFIDENCE

If acting is the art of reinvention, Michelle Dockery excels. While famous for her role as Downton Abbey’s forthright aristocrat Lady Mary, she is equally well known to other audiences as very different characters: the drug-addicted con artist in Good Behavior, the tough widow in Godless, or the mother in shock in Defending Jacob.

Born in East London in 1981, Dockery was inspired by a drama teacher at school to apply for the Guildhall School of Music & Drama. She joined the National Youth Theatre on graduating, and after a number of TV and stage roles, in 2010 was offered the part of Mary Crawley in the series Downton Abbey. She stayed through all six seasons, despite a personal tragedy when her real-life fiancé suddenly died aged just 34. While Dockery loved playing Lady Mary, she was not keen on being typecast in the role and so took the time to play smaller parts in action thrillers Hanna (2011) and Non-Stop (2014), and in a 2012 adaptation of Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina.

Downton Abbey brought Dockery in touch with US producers. In 2016, she was hired to play Letty Raines in the drama series Good Behavior. It ran to two seasons and received good reviews, although audience figures were low.

In 2017, Dockery featured in The Sense of an Ending, which was based on the Julian Barnes novel. It was Ritesh Batra, the Indian director behind the Hindi blockbuster The Lunchbox, that attracted Dockery to the film. She also starred as an unscrupulous media executive in a succesuful West End stage production of the classic 1976 movie Network, with Breaking Bad’s Bryan Cranston in the lead. Dockery returned to the US to play Alice Fletcher, one of a colony of indomitable women in Steven Soderburgh’s miniseries Godless. The New Mexico-set western was widely acclaimed, winning two Emmy’s in 2018. Most recently, Dockery starred in series Defending Jacob alongside Chris Evans; both were praised for their roles as parents of a teenager accused of murder.