DOWNTON MOVIE IS GO.. & WILL BE LAST
Actor Jim in shock revelation
HERE is some good news and bad for Downton Abbey fans… a third movie is in the pipeline, but it will also be the last.
Jim Carter, who plays butler Carson, revealed shooting of the period drama begins next month.
The 75-year-old actor said: “I think we can assuredly say it will be the last Downton film.
“We start filming in five weeks time. All the favourite characters will be there with some new ones for a bit of fun.”
Rumours of a third film have been around for a while, with the storyline expected to pick up where the last one left off, in the late-1920s. Downton ran from 2010 to 2015 on ITV and there have been two movies since, starring the likes of Hugh Bonneville and Elizabeth Mcgovern. But Jim admitted he did not have high hopes for the show as he thought it would do better on the BBC. He said: “I did not enter into it with any great ambition because ITV had no track record in doing period drama at the time. Everybody thought it would be the BBC with the Forsyte Saga.
“I thought we might be onto something when Maggie Smith said yes. It caught us all by surprise and it was a worldwide hit. I got recognised in the temples of Cambodia while on my bicycle in Lycra.”
Jim revealed the cast got to see inside the White House on a trip to the US when Barack Obama was President, as Downton was wife Michelle’s favourite show. But he was less than impressed with the famous Oval Office desk.
Speaking in an on-stage Q&A on Brighton’s Palace Pier with wife Imelda Staunton, he said: “The desk is up on naff little blocks because presidents have got taller over the years.”
Downton was a huge hit in the US and Jim also told how the cast got mobbed at an event in the British ambassador’s Washington residence.
He said: “They behaved disgracefully and were tearing at us as if we were the Bay City Rollers… no Bananarama.”