Downton Abbey: 'There’s a wedding, a funeral and a sex scene. Guess which one I’m in...
Everyone is wondering what will become of Lady Mary. Actress Michelle Dockery lets us into a few secrets about playing Downton Abbey’s leading lady .
Downton Abbey's Matthew Crawley (Dan Stevens) and Lady Mary (Michelle Dockery)
“Matthew is happy, and that’s all that matters to Mary,” asserts Michelle Dockery, the actress who plays Lady Mary. “She’s still deeply in love and full of regret, but she has to move on.”
Ah yes, the complicated love life of Lady Mary – the cold and snobbish eldest daughter of the Earl of Grantham – has proved one of the biggest draws of Downton. In the first series, the naughty aristocrat managed to smuggle a Turkish diplomat into her bed, where he promptly (and inconveniently) expired.
Now with her on-off entanglement with Matthew clearly off, she is considering a proposal from newspaper magnate Sir Richard Carlisle (Iain Glen) – but with such a scandalous past, is it wise to get involved? Particularly as Matthew’s fiancée Lavinia and Sir Richard have a secret that links them...
No wonder 10 million of us tuned in for the latest instalment of Julian Fellowes’s tale of battles among the bustles, figures which trounced the BBC’s Spooks. The series has not only scooped four Emmys, but has just been named by the Guinness Book of Records as the most critically acclaimed TV show.
Forget the clunking lines (William, the footman, now clearly designated as First World War cannon fodder, says of his desire to get to the battlefield, “I’ll be beggared if it’s over before I get there”) and the coincidences (Matthew and evil footman Thomas bump into each other during a battle that claimed 623,000 casualties on the Allied side alone), the period drama is perfect Sunday night fare: sex, blackmail and wonderful gowns.
Yet the actress who plays Lady Mary says the aristocrat would have had nothing to do with her in real life: “Oh, no – Lady Mary would never have talked to me – I’d have been in service,” says Essex girl Dockery. “In fact, I asked my nan recently if any of our family had been in service, and she reckons they were.”
Dockery’s porcelain-white skin and cut-glass tones would give any Lady a run for their money, but in reality she comes from Chadwell Heath, her father is a former lorry driver turned surveyor and her mother delivers meals on wheels.
Despite having no theatrical bent themselves, her parents encouraged their youngest daughter to pursue acting. “I think my parents knew before I did that I was going to be an actress because I was doing impressions of Margaret Thatcher at the age of four.”
Her A-level drama teacher helped Dockery, now 29, apply for a three-week course at the National Youth Theatre (“I walked in and it was like winning the lottery; I knew this was what I wanted to do”). She then took a year out to save up to go to the Guildhall drama school – jobs included working in a newspaper recruitment office and as an assistant at the NYT. Her big break came in 2008 as Eliza Doolittle in Sir Peter Hall’s production where she won rave reviews and was spotted by a Downton producer.
Dockery muses on the reasons for the show’s success: “It feels like a familiar period drama. But because it’s not a remake, or an adaptation of Austen or Dickens, the audience is seeing these stories for the first time and so they feel it is theirs. And no one knows the ending of an episode, in the way you would if it was an Austen adaptation.”
There was some cynicism whether ITV could pull off a high-production-value drama (each episode cost £1 million). Dockery says that scrupulous attention to detail put paid to that. “We have Alistair Bruce, a historian on set… Even when we’re just in the background of a scene, we’re given dialogue that’s scripted and when we’re not eating we have to put our hands in our lap.
“Julian [Fellowes] gets very annoyed if he watches something back and it’s not correct. One of the footmen wasn’t wearing gloves in one scene and Hugh [Bonneville] was wearing the wrong suit for walking in another, and we had to reshoot.”
The second series runs from 1916-1919 and features scenes from the trenches, while Downton Abbey is being turned into a convalescent home for soldiers. “It wouldn’t feel right if too much time was taken away from the house,” says Dockery. “The abbey itself is like a character.”
Lady Mary herself now has decisions to make. At 26, and “dangerously close to being on the shelf”, she becomes involved with Sir Richard, despite her father declaring that he doesn’t want “a hawker of newspaper scandal” in the house. “[Sir Richard’s] right for her in many ways,” says Dockery. “It’s like a business partnership rather than a romance. They would do well together in society, but Matthew is always there.
The problem is that they have this friendship – they become good friends in the second series.” (In fact, Dockery and Stevens are good friends; they had worked together on the BBC’s The Turn of the Screw.)
Lady Mary also has to get her hands dirty in the war effort. “She has to muck in… she does even end up wearing an apron at one point.” Unthinkable! For one of Downton’s highlights is the fabulous clothes that Lady Mary wears. Although she is in casual jumper and jeans today, Dockery yearns for more formal times.
“I think we’ve lost our femininity a little,” she says. “It was a wonderful period when you would dress for dinner. Even wearing your Sunday best for church – it’s a shame we’ve lost that.”
In this series, though, Downton’s clothes have become slightly more comfortable – “In two outfits I’m not even wearing a corset!” – a relief to the actress given the 12-hour days and six-day weeks spent filming.
During breaks, Dockery says she would “take out my guitar and sit with Elizabeth [McGovern, who plays the Countess] with our skirts hoicked up playing country music. Otherwise, I hang out with Laura Carmichael and Jessica Brown-Findlay [who play her younger sisters] watching Mad Men on our laptops.”
Singing with McGovern on set blossomed into a collaboration: Dockery is recording backing vocals for McGovern’s band, Sadie and the Hotheads.
An accomplished jazz singer, she’s also working with the famous Ronnie Scott’s club, as well as rehearsing for Joe Wright’s new film, Anna Karenina. Outside work, she lives with her architect boyfriend in fashionable Clerkenwell.
But her main priority is the remaining two weeks of filming at Highclere for the Downton Christmas special, and she’s cautious about what she can reveal. Could the flu pandemic remove inconvenient characters to bring Mary and Matthew together? “Everyone gets caught up in the flu pandemic one way or another.”
Dockery goes on: “So much of the fate of Downton depends on Matthew’s choice of wife. They [Matthew and Mary] are an ideal pairing. The audience will be rooting for them, like the family is. But Mary missed her chance. It’ll be interesting to see how the audience take to Lavinia and Carlisle – maybe they’ll change their minds.”
But what firm details can she give? “There’s a wedding, a funeral and a sex scene. I’m in two – no, wait,” she corrects herself. “I’m in one of those. The thing is, I can see people will think that I am involved in a particular one of those three, but I’m not. People will be really surprised.”
“And I can say that the incident with the Turkish diplomat comes back to haunt Mary in the second series. I can’t tell you why, but it could literally bring down the whole of the Crawley family – it’s huge.”
'Downton Abbey’ is on ITV on Sundays at 9pm.
Yet the actress who plays Lady Mary says the aristocrat would have had nothing to do with her in real life: “Oh, no – Lady Mary would never have talked to me – I’d have been in service,” says Essex girl Dockery. “In fact, I asked my nan recently if any of our family had been in service, and she reckons they were.”
Dockery’s porcelain-white skin and cut-glass tones would give any Lady a run for their money, but in reality she comes from Chadwell Heath, her father is a former lorry driver turned surveyor and her mother delivers meals on wheels.
Despite having no theatrical bent themselves, her parents encouraged their youngest daughter to pursue acting. “I think my parents knew before I did that I was going to be an actress because I was doing impressions of Margaret Thatcher at the age of four.”
Her A-level drama teacher helped Dockery, now 29, apply for a three-week course at the National Youth Theatre (“I walked in and it was like winning the lottery; I knew this was what I wanted to do”). She then took a year out to save up to go to the Guildhall drama school – jobs included working in a newspaper recruitment office and as an assistant at the NYT. Her big break came in 2008 as Eliza Doolittle in Sir Peter Hall’s production where she won rave reviews and was spotted by a Downton producer.
Dockery muses on the reasons for the show’s success: “It feels like a familiar period drama. But because it’s not a remake, or an adaptation of Austen or Dickens, the audience is seeing these stories for the first time and so they feel it is theirs. And no one knows the ending of an episode, in the way you would if it was an Austen adaptation.”
There was some cynicism whether ITV could pull off a high-production-value drama (each episode cost £1 million). Dockery says that scrupulous attention to detail put paid to that. “We have Alistair Bruce, a historian on set… Even when we’re just in the background of a scene, we’re given dialogue that’s scripted and when we’re not eating we have to put our hands in our lap.
“Julian [Fellowes] gets very annoyed if he watches something back and it’s not correct. One of the footmen wasn’t wearing gloves in one scene and Hugh [Bonneville] was wearing the wrong suit for walking in another, and we had to reshoot.”
The second series runs from 1916-1919 and features scenes from the trenches, while Downton Abbey is being turned into a convalescent home for soldiers. “It wouldn’t feel right if too much time was taken away from the house,” says Dockery. “The abbey itself is like a character.”
Lady Mary herself now has decisions to make. At 26, and “dangerously close to being on the shelf”, she becomes involved with Sir Richard, despite her father declaring that he doesn’t want “a hawker of newspaper scandal” in the house. “[Sir Richard’s] right for her in many ways,” says Dockery. “It’s like a business partnership rather than a romance. They would do well together in society, but Matthew is always there.
The problem is that they have this friendship – they become good friends in the second series.” (In fact, Dockery and Stevens are good friends; they had worked together on the BBC’s The Turn of the Screw.)
Lady Mary also has to get her hands dirty in the war effort. “She has to muck in… she does even end up wearing an apron at one point.” Unthinkable! For one of Downton’s highlights is the fabulous clothes that Lady Mary wears. Although she is in casual jumper and jeans today, Dockery yearns for more formal times.
“I think we’ve lost our femininity a little,” she says. “It was a wonderful period when you would dress for dinner. Even wearing your Sunday best for church – it’s a shame we’ve lost that.”
In this series, though, Downton’s clothes have become slightly more comfortable – “In two outfits I’m not even wearing a corset!” – a relief to the actress given the 12-hour days and six-day weeks spent filming.
During breaks, Dockery says she would “take out my guitar and sit with Elizabeth [McGovern, who plays the Countess] with our skirts hoicked up playing country music. Otherwise, I hang out with Laura Carmichael and Jessica Brown-Findlay [who play her younger sisters] watching Mad Men on our laptops.”
Singing with McGovern on set blossomed into a collaboration: Dockery is recording backing vocals for McGovern’s band, Sadie and the Hotheads.
An accomplished jazz singer, she’s also working with the famous Ronnie Scott’s club, as well as rehearsing for Joe Wright’s new film, Anna Karenina. Outside work, she lives with her architect boyfriend in fashionable Clerkenwell.
But her main priority is the remaining two weeks of filming at Highclere for the Downton Christmas special, and she’s cautious about what she can reveal. Could the flu pandemic remove inconvenient characters to bring Mary and Matthew together? “Everyone gets caught up in the flu pandemic one way or another.”
Dockery goes on: “So much of the fate of Downton depends on Matthew’s choice of wife. They [Matthew and Mary] are an ideal pairing. The audience will be rooting for them, like the family is. But Mary missed her chance. It’ll be interesting to see how the audience take to Lavinia and Carlisle – maybe they’ll change their minds.”
But what firm details can she give? “There’s a wedding, a funeral and a sex scene. I’m in two – no, wait,” she corrects herself. “I’m in one of those. The thing is, I can see people will think that I am involved in a particular one of those three, but I’m not. People will be really surprised.”
“And I can say that the incident with the Turkish diplomat comes back to haunt Mary in the second series. I can’t tell you why, but it could literally bring down the whole of the Crawley family – it’s huge.”
'Downton Abbey’ is on ITV on Sundays at 9pm.
