Hugh Bonneville

OF ‘GREAT PERFORMANCES: FROM VIENNA: THE NEW YEAR’S CELEBRATION 2021’ ON PBS

You’re back for your fourth consecutive year of hosting “Great Performances: From Vienna: The New Year’s Celebration 2021,” with Riccardo Muti as this edition’s guest conductor. Is it safe to assume that in the current climate, you’re finding a new way to do it?

We’re going to be doing it slightly differently this time, inevitably. Obviously, travel isn’t easy and certainly, filming is tricky ... but we’re finding a clever way of doing a socially distanced New Year’s Day concert with the magic of technology.

How much more secure do you feel in your host role for the special, now going into the fourth time?

I still love saying that I’ve taken over from Julie Andrews. I thoroughly enjoy Vienna, and the welcome that we receive there is extraordinary. It is a city built on culture, and it takes great pride in its music.

I’m not a great devotee myself in terms of the classical repertoire, but to be in that environment, I learn little bits each year about the history. Four years in, it’s a tradition for me, and I have no doubt that the concert will be as magnificent as ever.

Where do plans for a second “Downton Abbey” movie currently stand?

Well, there’s certainly an appetite for it, for the audience as much as for the team. It’s really a question for the filming gods, I suppose. We’d love to think that we can film it in 2021.

It’s pointing in the right direction, and our producers have managed to put the call out to the cast to try to herd them – good luck with that! – but like with the first film, there was a genuine will to do it. If we can do that again, COVID-19 permitting, 2021 could be the year for it.