Feature …
Maggie Smith returns to the big screen sequel to Downton Abbey to reprise her role as the Dowager Countess in Downton Abbey: A New Era.
NOTHING LIKE THIS
Dame D
ame Maggie Smith has
Indeed, she was one of the last
Although Lady Grantham is ill at
been famously lukewarm
members of the cast of the original
the end of the first film, and Smith
about her star turn as
Downton TV show, which took the
was again reluctant, Downton fans
Violet Crawley, Dowager Countess
world by storm between 2010 and
will be relieved and delighted to
of Grantham in Downton Abbey.
2015, to agree to appear in the 2019
In several interviews she’s been
film, which saw the Granthams
quite frank about the fact that
preparing for a visit from the
she didn’t really consider the role
royal family. In fact, in one
as “really … acting”. (She’s been
interview she said she
similarly unenthusiastic about
thought the film should
sequel, Simon Curtis,
her blockbuster role as Minerva
begin with her funeral! “I
has worked with
McGonagall in the Harry Potter
just think it’s squeezing
several members of
franchise, another iconic role she
it dry, do you know what
the cast before, and
doesn’t take altogether seriously.)
I mean?” she said in
“I am deeply grateful
Film Institute at the time. The
indeed Downton but it wasn’t what
film went on to gross $194.2m
you’d call satisfying,” she told the
worldwide, so there was clearly an
Evening Standard. “I didn’t really feel
appetite for the upstairs-downstairs
I was acting in those things.”
drama after the series wrapped.
SILVER DIGEST // SPRING 2021
the original principal cast members who reprised their roles for the sequel. (The director of the
is actually married to
an interview with the British
for the work in Potter and
10
see that she is once again among
Elizabeth McGovern who plays the part of Lady Cora opposite Hugh Bonneville’s Lord Highclere Castle, the main setting for Downton Abbey.
Grantham. In another little aside, Imelda Staunton, who played Lady Maud Bagshaw in the first film, is
