DOWNTON ABBEY IS BACK!
Will the new movie answer all our questions?
On Sept. 20, we happily return to the English countryside for a reunion with the Crawley family and their servants on the big screen. How will the household handle a royal visit? Will Tom Branson ever find love again? Parade goes behind the scenes of the new movie to find out. Plus, creator Julian Fellowes on why we love rich Brits.
It has been four years since we last saw the Crawley family and their loyal staff in the beloved six-season PBS Masterpiece series. But onscreen, in the new movie written by series creator Julian Fellowes and directed by Michael Engler, a little more than a year has passed. “Julian has been very clever,” says Allen Leech, who plays former chauffeur Tom Branson, who’s now a family member. “[The story] has some breathing space, which means you can come back to these characters and see how they’ve developed over a period of time, but it’s not so vast that you feel you’ve lost touch with them.”
In fact, the year is 1927, and news that King George V and Queen Mary— Queen Elizabeth II’s grandparents—are coming to Downton upends the usual order of things in the Crawley household, which is now run with a pareddown staff. “The excitement over the visit is part of the engine of the film,” says Kevin Doyle, who portrays footman/schoolteacher Mr. Molesley. “It affects everyone. Most of the people are very enthusiastic about it, especially the servants. A royal visit would come once in a generation, if that.”
It’s no surprise that Lady Mary Talbot (Michelle Dockery) is largely running the estate with Branson’s help. “Tom and Mary are the new custodians of the estate,” says Hugh Bonneville, who plays Robert, the Earl of Grantham. “Robert and Cora’s [Elizabeth McGovern] generation are gently handing over the baton. In a sense, it becomes their world.” One plot twist: Lady Mary had been considering
leaving Downton with her husband, Henry Talbot (Matthew Goode), to start a new life. Instead she takes charge of the preparations for the royal visit and asks former butler-in-chief Charles Carson ( Jim Carter) to come out of retirement to oversee the details of the grand occasion. “He would do anything for Lady Mary,” says Carter. “She’s like a daughter to him and he’s only too happy to go back to the house to serve the king and queen.”
And no spoilers here—just a hint about a potential romance: “For anyone who rooted for Tom Branson in the show, they will be very happy,” says Leech.
“The biggest testament to the film is that everyone turned up to play,” says Bonneville. “We had some hurdles getting everyone in the same place at the same time, but there was a will to do it.”
Even Maggie Smith is back. Despite having said she wasn’t in favor of a Downton movie (she told one interviewer, “I was firmly convinced [the movie] would start with [my character’s] funeral”), Smith returns as the infinitely quotable Violet, the Dowager Countess of Grantham.
Executive producer Gareth Neame says the Oscar-winning actress was the last original cast member to sign on. “I suspect in a lot of ways, Maggie missed working with the other actors,” he says. “When she was completely
“It sounds corny, but it really was like putting on a familiar sweater.”
—Hugh Bonneville, who plays the Earl of Grantham