Stick to the script and you can be as funny as Dame Maggie, Fellowes advises new actors
MODERN actors are killing comedy with their desire to rewrite lines, Julian Fellowes has complained.
Lord Fellowes, creator of Downton Abbey, said actors now believe they must inject their own ideas into their performance, adapting the dialogue written for them in the script. Saying the trend was “absolutely fatal” for comedy, he urged actors to preserve the rhythm of lines to keep their audience entertained.
Speaking at an event at the China Exchange to celebrate his career, Lord Fellowes praised Dame Maggie Smith, who played the Dowager Countess in Downton, for her meticulous delivery. Asked why Dame Maggie always seems to get the best lines, he said: “I think we’ve got each other’s rhythm. It sounds rather vain, but I know how to write for her and, by God, she knows how to play what I write.
“The very interesting thing about Maggie is that she never needs to have it explained why it’s funny.
“Sometimes actors say, ‘I don’t understand’, and you say, ‘no, I promise it will be funny’. But she never needs to have it explained.
“Also she never changes anything. Some actors now have a feeling, which started in America but has come here a bit now, that they have to alter their lines a bit to make them their own, and they have to add words and everything, which is absolutely fatal for comedy. Because once you put one word in the line it loses its comedy rhythm and it isn’t funny anymore.”
Lord Fellowes was also, inevitably, asked about the prospect of a Downton Abbey film. He said he hoped it would happen but when prodded further, declined to give details of the plot or characters, saying only: “I do not think it would be terribly likely I would answer that question.”