Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes hints cast are holding up film being made

MIRROR
BY NICOLA AGIUS
14 April, 2016



Downton Abbey creator Jullian Fellowes has seriously hinted that the cast are the reason a film is not yet in production.

Speaking on Loose Women today, the award-winning writer admitted he would love to turn his small screen masterpiece into a blockbuster, but the decision is not in his hands.

Are the likes of Hugh Bonneville, Dame Maggie Smith, Michelle Dockery and Elizabeth McGovern to blame?

"Let's just say it's not me slowing things up," he teased. "The difficulty is rounding up the actors. One is in America making a new series, another is in a play.

READ MORE HERE: http://www.mirror.co.uk/tv/tv-news/downton-abbey-creator-julian-fellowes-7755060

(SPOILER ALERT) ‘Downton Abbey’ Recap: In the Finale, Mary Meets Mr. Handsome, With a Who Could-Care-Less Attitude (SPOILER ALERT)

NEW YORK TIMES
By LOUIS BAYARD  MARCH 1, 2015 10:37 PM


Michelle Dockery as Lady Mary with  one of the twin Barkers portraying Lady Mary's son, Master George Crawley.Credit Nick Briggs/Carnival Films for Masterpiece

Season 5, Episode 9

Oh, Abbots. It can’t be over, can it? Another season, gone as quickly as a grouse flying over Brancaster Castle.

So let us keep sorrow at bay by reminding ourselves: We’ve finally pulled abreast. Oh, sure, those viewers in Britain got their usual three-month head start on us (just as the Brits used to get first crack at the latest Dickens installment). Viewers in the United States who were too impatient to wait for the weekly drip of revelation snapped up their DVDs and sometimes blurted out key plot developments over a few too many Manhattans. They had us in their spoiler-alert grip, Abbots, but no longer. Democracy reigns.

So now that we’re all on the same plane of knowledge, what can we say for sure about this fast-receding season? (For Baron Fellowes’ thoughts, read this.)

Longstanding relationships (the Bateses, Robert and Cora) were tested and left standing. Longstanding plot lines were either resolved (Edith’s daughter) or abruptly discarded (Mary Crowley’s sort-of-not-really love triangle). Characters like Violet, the dowager countess, were enlarged with new layers and backstories; others showed clear signs of outliving their narrative usefulness. From all indications, we have seen the last of:



1) Mary’s dim suitor Tony Gillingham (Tom Cullen), who gets a fine consolation prize in Mabel Lane Fox (Catherine Steadman).

2) Boston-bound Tom Branson (Allen Leech), who has taken longer to quit the scene than Cher.

3) Rose (Lily James) and Atticus (Matt Barber), who are heading off to New York. (Synchronously, Ms. James has veered off toward “Cinderella,” a part she seems genetically modified for.)

One way or another, the Downton family is fragmenting. Just like the Downton estate (headed for subdivision) and the Downton ethos, a victim to those winds of sociopolitical change that Carson (Jim Carter) keeps mumbling on about. As servants like Daisy (Sophie McShera) begin to imagine better lives, as Socialists like Sarah Bunting make scenes in fine dining rooms, as Edwardian ideals give way to harsh postwar realities (excellent historical timeline here), look for the Crawleys and their retinues to feel and fight their own anachronism.

We know they’ll lose, but what’s a historical drama without gallant fools engaged in rear-guard actions? So carry on, you lovely, maddening elitists, along with your lovely, maddening retinues. We’ll be griping and grumbling, and we’ll be watching.

In the meantime, may I suggest just one incremental reform? On the evidence of Episode 9, you need better legal counsel.

I’m sure the Earl of Grantham’s lawyer, George Murray (Jonathan Coy), has a few gray cells poking around in there, but several years after botching the defense of Bates (Brendan Coyle), he seems bound and determined to do the same with Mrs. Bates (Joanne Froggatt), even going so far as to declare the police case against her airtight when — as we all know, Abbots — it has more holes than, well, a grouse flying over Brancaster Castle.

Turns out that, when Anna was a teenager, she cut her stepfather-molester with a knife, and while she was never charged, that mysteriously reconstructed incident has created some kind of — oh, I don’t know, “pattern” of violence that will sweep Anna straight to the gallows, and in the name of Perry Mason, can’t some fine lawyerly mind sweep this whole business to sea? Instead, it falls to Bates (Mr. Coyle) to confess to Mr. Green’s murder and then vamoose to Ireland.

Now if Sarah Bunting were still around, I would point out to her that, even without benefit of a welfare state, no one enjoys better job security than the Bateses. It doesn’t matter how much leave they take or how many heinous crimes they’re accused of, their jobs are always kept open, their home fires are kept burning, and free (if incompetent) legal care abounds. Sweden could do no better.

At any rate, Anna is sprung on bail, and Murray declares, “We’re going forward and not backward,” but to me, it feels like we’re on the same leaking story pontoon, which only stays afloat because Baron Fellowes’ legs are kicking as madly as they can. By episode’s end, even he must be a little fatigued because a York publican turns up to give Bates an alibi, and the witness who ID’d Anna sprouts “doubts,” and lo and behold, it’s Christmas, and who should pop out of the mistletoe, as it were, but Bates?

Love emerges when you least expect it, Abbots. Sometimes all it takes (and this will give aid and comfort to Freudians everywhere) is for a lot of men to pull out their big guns. The Sinderbys have rented Brancaster for a weeklong shooting party, and no one is immune. Even Edith (Laura Carmichael) loses a bit of her Mildred Pierce-y daughter fixation and dances a few rounds with agreeable castle agent Bertie Pelham (Harry Hadden-Paton). We wish them both well. (And by the way, Edith needs to let that hair flow. With her locks down to her shoulders, she goes from librarian to licentious.)

But no one is more moved by the sight of men and their gauges than Lady Mary Crawley (Michelle Dockery), who finds herself unaccountably aroused by the marksmanship of a handsome stranger named Henry Talbot. Now I don’t mean to crow, but as soon as I heard Matthew Goode was signed up for the final episode, I immediately discerned that his plot function would be roughly the same as it was in “The Good Wife”: to melt the froideur of a stern, ashen, erotically complicated brunette. Sure enough, he shows up on the Northumberland moors without even an establishing close-up but with enough swagger to remind us that Mary needs a chap who looks as good as Tony G but treats her as roughly as Inspector Vyner. “Heavens,” exclaims Mary, watching Talbot climb into his car. “What a snappy chariot.” Now I would’ve thought she’d be a little skittish of automobiles, given how her late husband met his end, but she seems to be all over Henry T and his Bentley.

Amazing to think, Abbots, that after two seasons of arid flirtation and Liverpool lovefests, Our Miss Flint has found someone to spark off. And the secret to his allure? He doesn’t give a damn if she likes him or not. Look for Talbot to stick around.

READ THE ENTIRE RECAP HERE: http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/03/01/downton-abbey-recap-in-the-finale-mary-meets-mr-handsome-who-could-care-less/?_r=0

‘Downton Abbey’ recap - **** makes her escape!!! (SPOILERS)

WASHINGTON POST
By Joe Heim February 8 at 10:00 PM

 

After a dully-dull Downton last week, the show returned Sunday night with its best episode in ages, filled with intrigue, nasty sniping and a number of critical plot revelations.

Where to begin? Well, Mr. Bates almost certainly didn’t kill Mr. Green. Edith is officially a pre-marital widow. Lord and Lady Grantham are back to sharing the same bed. Horse races don’t always end with the death of a rider even when you think they will. And Lady Mary has all the sympathy of a mongoose. Not bad for a 50-minute episode.

(Ooops, wrong Mr. Bates)

The show opened with a telegram arriving for Lady Edith. Stop. Telegrams were the text messages of their day. Stop. This one informs her that the business partner of her lover, the missing Mr. Gregson, is coming to Downton with news. Stop.

Everyone at the Abbey assumes, correctly it turns out, that the news is bad. Mr. Gregson, the father of Edith’s child, has been offed by Adolf’s gang of Brownshirt thugs in Germany. The news confirms Edith’s fears and she is understandably upset. Her sister Mary? Not so much. “Well of course it’s terrible,” she says to Anna. “But what did she think he was doing? Living in a tree?”

Oh Mary, you are a dear.

I’m afraid that’s just the beginning of her awfulness this week. In Edith’s moment of despair (admittedly, she has a lot of those), Merciless Mary sharpens her heels for an extra kick or two. More about that in a bit.

The Dowager Countess hears from beanless Shrimpy that he may be close to finding Prince Kuragin’s wife alive in Hong Kong. The DC, who had a fling with the noble Russian refugee many moons ago, decides she should travel to his rundown tenement in York to tell him the news about his wife. Kuragin is not exactly elated to hear it. I think he would have been happier if his wife met the same fate as poor Mr. Gregson.

The randy Russian is much more interested in rekindling the magic with the Dowager Countess. He tries to work his charm. “I wanted you from the moment I first saw you. More than mortal man ever wanted woman,” he tells her. It’s a good line, Kuragin, but the DC isn’t that easy.



Lord Grantham is still feeling quite frosty toward his wife. He found another man in their bedroom, after all. Even though she claims nothing happened, it’s not the kind of thing you just casually dismiss. Cora wants to patch things up, but she’ll need quite a bit of super glue to put this all back together. She visits him in his dressing room to ask him to return to their bedroom. Lord G refuses, but Cora is having none of it.

“If you can honestly say that you have never let a flirtation get out of hand since we were married, if you have never given a woman the wrong impression, then by all means, stay away,” she tells him.

“Otherwise I expect you back in my room tonight.” Tell him, Cora! Grantham huffs and puffs and then pulls himself out of the tiny, tiny bed, tucks his tail between his legs and heads off to join her.

Speaking of sad puppies, I’m worried about Isis. I don’t know what’s going to happen to her, but I think we’re in for an Old Yeller moment later this year. Get your hankies ready.

Big news this week: Mary is off to York for haircut. It’s a mod bob! Now she’ll no longer have to go upstairs to take off her hat.

The haircut sets the scene for another splendid showdown in the Downton drawing room (which I believe was designed to look like the office of Congressman Aaron Schock). No, Bunting is not involved. But it turns out the regular crew is perfectly capable of creating their own drama. Edith is still mourning Gregson, but Mary seems to think this is a swell time to show off her new do. This causes a stir. Grandma gets in a dry dig. “Ah, it is you,” she says. “I thought it was a man wearing your clothes.”

Edith can’t comprehend how inconsiderate Mary is being. “I’m amazed that even you would choose the day after I learned the man I loved is dead to try out a new fashion,” she says. “And if that weren’t enough, you’ve planned a jolly picnic for Saturday. Am I really expected to join in?”

“Hopefully not, as you usually spoil everything,” Mary replies icily. Mary will have her own wing in hell.




(Again, these very rude pictures were provided by Karen V. Wasylowski, not the distinguished Washington Post)

READ THE REST HERE: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/style-blog/wp/2015/02/08/downton-abbey-recap-edith-makes-her-move-and-mary-is-so-so-cold/

‘Downton Abbey’ recap: A rare instance of fisticuffs

WASHINGTON POST
By Joe Heim February 1 at 10:00 PM



Approximately 16 people chose to watch “Downton Abbey” instead of the Super Bowl on Sunday night. If you’re reading this, you are probably one of them. I’m kidding of course. The audience for “Downton Abbey” was likely in the hundreds.

If ever there was a good week to miss the show (and I’m not saying there is) this might have been it. Maybe the writers realized they would be up against the Super Bowl. That would explain the feel this one had, of an episode that had been thrown together at the last minute. The official name for this kind of thing is “filler.”

But not all was lost. There was a punch-up this week and we so rarely see anyone on “Downton” losing control of his or her emotions (besides Edith of course) that the show was worth watching for the fray alone.

The episode began with the arrival of Aunt Rosamund, here to rescue the aforementioned poor Lady Edith from her misery. This, like almost everything involving Edith, doesn’t go well. More on that in a bit.

Another party is being planned at Downton and that’s a hint that the writers were getting a bit lazy. Can they think of no events other than parties to advance a plot? This time the bash is a cocktail party for Lord Grantham’s lieutenants (pronounced ‘lefttenants’ because the British hate to pronounce a word the way it’s spelled). The idea of having a cocktail party instead of a proper dinner is positively revolutionary, but perhaps Lord Grantham has endorsed the idea because he can’t bear the thought of the obstreperous Miss Bunting obstrepering yet another dinner.

In other inexplicable Downton news, Mrs. Crawley hasn’t yet decided how to answer Lord Merton’s lovely proposal. Seriously, Mrs. C, if you’re waiting for a better pitch than that, it’s going to be a long haul. The Dowager Countess, still worried about Mrs. Crawley gaining any social standing, decides to conspire with Dr. Clarkson to show Mrs. C just how shallow and ill-suited a partner Lord Merton would be for her. To both their credit, the DC and Clarkson come to realize that Merton actually is the perfect match. Now we just have to wait and see if Mrs. Crawley reaches the same conclusion.

(from Arrested Downton)

Downstairs, Mrs. Patmore has come into a little bit of money and wants to know how to invest it. So she goes to Carson for advice. He’s a man and men understand investments. Just ask Bernie Madoff. She ends up disregarding his advice (smart Cookie!) but tries to make him think she actually took it. Men have feelings, after all. Maybe this will turn into a crucial plot thread, but it sure felt like more filler.

Okay, back to Edith. Lady Rosamund and dear Grandmama are trying to convince her to stop stalking Marigold and send the baby to a new family in order to protect her (and the family’s) reputation. I suppose it’s easy, given the modern view of these things, to want to shake Edith by the shoulders and tell her to tell everyone that she’s the mother and wants to raise the baby, married or not. But that is not how things were done. Having a high-society baby out of wedlock was almost always a non-starter.

(Random Aside no. 1: Wedlock is such a strange word. It sounds more like a prison sentence than eternal bliss.)

Lord Grantham and Tom are having their eleventeenth discussion about Miss Bunting. She might be the worst dinner guest ever, but Tom’s wishy-washy-ness is getting on my nerves as well. Grantham tries to convince Tom that his time at Downton has been a great opportunity for him and that he shouldn’t ignore that. He should ignore Bunting instead.

You know who Tom shouldn’t ignore? Mary. Their tete-a-tete’s this year make me wonder if they won’t try to be more than just in-laws to one another. At the very least, Mary may want to take a test drive.

In this week’s police news, Mr. Carson has received a note that the local constabulary will be stopping by again. These drop-ins are becoming a little ridiculous. Do the police only ask one question each time they visit the Abbey? Haven’t they ever watched “Law & Order”? This is not how you conduct a police investigation.

This time the local policeman is accompanied by an inspector from Scotland Yard and they are here to talk to Anna and Lady Mary. I actually think Anna is the one who killed Green. But my guess is we will need about 25 more police visits until that will be revealed.

Lady Edith takes Aunt Rosamund to see her darling Marigold at the Drews’. It’s a bit like a visit to a petting zoo. Wearing their Downton-y finest, Edith and Rosamund look like they’re planning to award a blue ribbon to the local pig farmer’s wife for how well she has raised this little girl. Mrs. Drew would like to clunk Edith over the head. How great would it be if Mrs. Drew moved into the Abbey and Edith moved into the tenant farmer’s home to take care of her brood? I think there was a reality show like that a few years ago.

This week our favorite art historian returned to Downton, purportedly to take a picture of the famous painting. But everyone knows that’s a ruse. He has his eyes on Downton’s prized possession, Lady Grantham.

Bricker arrives and Lord Grantham, who for some reason is dressed like a greeter at FAO Schwarz, gives him a brusque hello before heading off. Bricker is pleased to see the back of Grantham and more pleased to see the front of Lady Cora. Let the flirting commence!

READ MORE OF THE RECAP HERE: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/style-blog/wp/2015/02/01/downton-abbey-recap-a-rare-instance-of-fisticuffs/

(P.S. Don't blame the Washington Post for the pictures here - I included them.  K. Wasylowski)

‘Downton Abbey' To End This Year After Six Series As Cast Go Job-Hunting In The US

HUFF POST ENTERTAINMENT UK
The Huffington Post UK |  BY Matt Bagwell
Posted: 29/01/2015 07:20 GMT Updated: 29/01/2015 07:59 GMT



The next series of ‘Downton Abbey’ will be the last, according to reports.

The ITV period drama, which stars Hugh Bonneville and Dame Maggie Smith, will end after the sixth series airs later this year.

The final installment is set to be filmed over the spring and summer and will hit our screens in September.

Writer Julian Fellowes is set to begin working on a brand new series, ‘The Gilded Age’, about 19th century New York, whilst agents for the cast are already in talks to find them new roles.

A source told The Mirror: “It’s an open secret that Downton is ending this year.

"Some of the actors are keen to let it be known they will be available for work after the summer. Some are interested in the US, where Downton is as popular as it is in the UK.

“Joanne Froggatt, Laura Carmichael and Allen Leech were in Los Angeles for the [SAG] awards last week and there were several meetings about both TV and film roles.”

Michelle Dockery, who plays Lady Mary, has spoken in the past about working in America.

She said: “It feels as though there are more opportunities for us over there. “I love spending time there.”


READ MORE HERE: http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2015/01/29/downton-abbey-ending_n_6568420.html

'DOWNTON ABBEY' SEASON 5, EPISODE 4 FASHION RECAP: LADY MARY WINS EVERYTHING

FASHIONISTA
CHERYL WISCHHOVER 12 HOURS AGO

Spoilers.

This episode of "Downton Abbey" marks the halfway point of the season, and it really should just be called "There's Something About Mary" now, because she is winning everything in the show.  Including all the fake fashion awards in my head.

HOW TO WEAR A RED HAT



In this episode, Lady Mary totally schools us in red hat-wearing. The key? Keep it in the jewel-tone family. If this was the InStyle feature which teaches you how to style weird colors like mustard (which is one of my favorite columns in that mag), I'd call the plum coat and red hat a "wild card pairing."

LADY EDITH BLENDS IN

I was really struck by how often Edith's wardrobe makes her blend into the background. First, she was totally camouflaged by the red velvet couch in the library, then she matched the fence while trying to spy on her daughter. Come on, writers, Lady Edith really needs her triumphant moment.

THE "DRESS SHOW"

"Aunt Rosamund's taking me to a dress show." --Lady Mary

"It's good to know you've got your priorities straight." --Lord Grantham

Honestly, could a "Downton Abbey" fashion recapper ask for anything more glorious than AN ACTUAL FASHION SHOW on the show? No. I can now die happy. That androgynous number on the far left (Mary's reaction: "Golly!") looks like something Miuccia would create.

THE BOHO MISS LANE FOX

In case you'd forgotten (I did, and had to consult the Downtonpedia), Miss Lane Fox was formerly engaged to Tony Gillingham, who then broke off the engagement to pursue Mary. Ouch. Anyway, her style looks rather boho. She's the Drew Barrymore of Downton.

BITCH, PLEASE




READ MORE HERE: http://popist.com/s/500f789/

As 'Downton Abbey' heads into season five, it maintains its magic touch

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
BY DAVID HINCKLEY
Sunday, January 4, 2015, 2:00 AM


NICK BRIGGS

Laura Carmichael as Lady Edith Crawley on “Downton Abbey”; the plotline for Season 5 will spend a fair amount of time with Lady Edith.

The magic touch that “Downton Abbey” has wielded from its opening scene is the kind of gift that, like a lavish British country estate, you have to be born with.

From the moment the Titanic went down right up to the show’s fifth season, which launches on PBS at 9 p.m. Sunday, that touch has not diminished.

Take it from Rob James-Collier, who plays Thomas Barrow, better known to fans of “Downton Abbey” as Evil Thomas, the downstairs servant whose own nefarious touch routinely turns gold into sawdust.

James-Collier earned two university degrees and spent several years in marketing before deciding at age 28 to become an actor.



“I discovered I hated marketing,” he says. So he took some acting classes and the kind of small roles aspiring actors always take before landing Barrow.

“Now I love what I do,” he says. But sure, he allows, all that marketing experience can at times still hover about.

Like it did this summer, when “Downton Abbey” was rocked by plastic water bottle scandal.

Lord Grantham (Hugh Bonneville) and Lady Edith (Laura Carmichael) posed for a Season 5 publicity picture in front of a stately mantelpiece on which was nestled a plastic water bottle.

Plastic water bottles had so not been invented in 1925.

The scandal abated when the cast quickly shot a followup picture acknowledging and joking about their grievous error.

But scandal it was, and James-Collier says it was nothing short of brilliant.

“I have no idea if it was accidental or deliberate,” he says. “But my immediate reaction, from my marketing training, is that this did everything a good marketing campaign is supposed to do.

“It got that picture onto front pages all over the world. It got people talking about the show when it wasn’t even on the air.

“If I were running the campaign, it’s exactly what I would have done.”

Wherever The Case of the Mysterious Water Bottle originated, it’s hardly the only time “Downton” has emerged shining, or scored in a way that PBS shows just don’t score.

Over the last week and a half, more than a millions viewers have watched a nine-minute video in which George Clooney joins the “Downton” cast to promote Britain’s Text Santa charity.

Best of all, for PBS, “Downton” has become the most popular drama in PBS history. The fourth season U.S. premiere drew 10.2 million viewers, more than most commercial broadcast network shows, and while the fifth season audience dropped a bit when it ran this past fall in the U.K., it was still at the top of the pack.

It was primarily “Downton,” PBS officials will happily admit, that lifted PBS from being the 13th most-watched TV network a couple of years ago to the fifth most-watched last year.

So PBS itself, like the show’s fans, wish it could run forever.



That doesn’t happen, though, and executive producer Gareth Naeme remains coy about just how long it will actually run.

“It will end somewhere between Season 5 and Season 10,” he said in early December.


READ MORE HERE: http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/tv/downton-abbey-retains-magic-season-article-1.2059841

‘Downton Abbey’ Renewed for Sixth Season

VARIETY
Alex Stedman
News Editor, Variety.com
@a_sted



“Downton Abbey” has been renewed for a season six, ITV and producer Carnival Films announced on Thursday.

The official “Downton Abbey” Twitter account also tweeted the news.

Friends, #TeamServants have such wonderful news to share with you all! #Downton pic.twitter.com/obIk3aFrz4

— Downton Abbey (@DowntonAbbey) November 6, 2014

The British drama will go into production in 2015 with Julian Fellowes writing.

The news comes months before season five debuts in the U.S. on PBS on Jan. 4. Season five will complete its run in the U.K. on Sunday.

“We have had an amazing reaction to the story lines, acting and production values of Downton Abbey this year and the whole team is thrilled to be moving ahead with a new season of the show,” said executive producer and Carnival’s managing editor Gareth Neame in a statement. “This will provide audiences with a fresh opportunity to see what will befall our much loved characters.”

READ MORE HERE: http://variety.com/2014/tv/news/downton-abbey-renewed-sixth-season-1201349590/

Downton Abbey series 5: Will the Grantham's dog last, even if she's called Isis? (spoiler alert kind of )

INDEPENDENT
MATTHEW BELL , ELLEN E JONES
Sunday 26 October 2014

The question of how to deal with an embarrassing Labrador has hounded English families for decades.

But even by the wacky standards of Downton Abbey, killing it off seems a little extreme. Tonight’s episode of ITV’s period soap opera appears to tackle a problem that has been getting harder to ignore. Lord Grantham’s dog is called Isis. This is awkward because it shares a name with the terrorist movement sweeping the Middle East. With the jihadists showing little sign of giving up, one of them had to go, so – spoiler alert – Julian Fellowes and his script-writers have given the dog the heave-ho.

Or so it would seem. About 20 minutes into tonight’s episode, Lord and Lady Grantham interrupt discussions on some building work to observe that Isis is looking “terribly listless”. The golden Labrador does, indeed, look a little peaky, splayed out on the ground like a spatchcock chicken. “I wonder if she’s picked up a germ,” observes Lady Mary, in doubtful 1920s speak. “Maybe she’s eaten a squirrel.” Other Moriarty-style observations include her looking “quite fat”, and “perhaps she’s pregnant?”.

Seasoned viewers of Downton – we are now in series five – will know that even the most trifling of conversations are loaded with meaning. So this dialogue – of a banality that is quite normal for The Archers, less so for Downton – must point to some terrible undoing of the dog later in the series. Which would conveniently tackle the PR problem that has plagued this series. When viewers first noticed the connection last month, they took to Twitter, pointing it out as #awkward.

The dog’s possible demise should not come as a complete surprise. The fact that Isis made her debut in the first Downton episode set in 1912 as an adult, and is still with the family in 1924, puts her at the upper end of Labrador life expectancy, canine experts say.

A spokesman for ITV insists it is pure coincidence, and that they got there first. “Isis has been the Crawleys’ family pet since series two (2011) and was named after the Egyptian goddess,” she says. “At the time the dog was named, and up to and including the majority of filming of series five, no one was using that acronym to describe a terror group. It is an unfortunate coincidence.”

Who knew?

READ MORE HERE: http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/news/downton-abbey-can-a-lords-best-friend-last-for-evereven-if-shes-called-isis-9818682.html

Downton's Michelle Dockery: 'Lady Mary would never have spoken to me'

EXPRESS
By: Simon Gage
Published: Sun, October 19, 2014

It’s a long way from Romford Market to Downton Abbey, but actress Michelle Dockery has made the journey in style and at speed, sometimes in hoop earrings (“my little bit of Essex bling”). Not bad for the daughter of a van driver.

“Lady Mary would never have spoken to me,” she says of her character. “I would definitely have been below stairs.” She’s not wrong. Look a little further back and her family were East End horse traders and fruit sellers, and she recently found that her great-grandmother worked in service in the early 1900s.

Michelle, however, was determined to break the mould. “I think my parents knew before I did that I was going to be an actress,” she says.

“I was doing impressions of Margaret Thatcher at the age of four.” And although her hard-working family had no showbiz connections whatsoever, her parents knew their daughter well enough to send her to acting classes at the church hall down the road and then for a stint at the National Youth Theatre. “I walked in there and it was like winning the lottery,” is how she describes that experience. “I knew this was what I wanted to do.”

But Michelle didn’t have it all her own way. In time-honoured, struggling- actress tradition, she found herself collecting glasses in pubs and working in a pie-and-mash shop to make ends meet as she began her climb to the top. “It’s mad to think it now, but I could barely pay my rent,” she chuckles.


Then came Sir Peter Hall’s highly praised 2008 production of Pygmalion. Thanks to playing Eliza Doolittle, the working-class girl groomed to pass herself off as a lady – something she’s been doing to great acclaim ever since – Michelle was discovered by the producers of Downton.

Amateur Professor Higginses have said you can still detect a bit of the Essex girl when she speaks, but Michelle reckons that drama school does a very good job of “poshing you up quick”.

“I had a very strong Essex accent when I was younger,” says the girl they called Docker at school, “and I don’t think I would have got the role of Lady Mary if I’d walked into the audition going, ‘Allo, nice ter meet ya!’”

The posture, especially that high chin, might be from another time and another class, but Michelle is very much the 21st-century woman, with her Mad Men obsession, her love of sushi and social media, and her choice of Bonnie Tyler’s Total Eclipse of the Heart as preferred shower singing.

There may be a touch of irony about the latter, but music is very important to Michelle: she’s been doing backing vocals for Sadie and the Hotheads – the band led by Elizabeth McGovern, who plays her mother in Downton – and has even been known to take the stage at Soho jazz joint Ronnie Scott’s, where her vocals are said to exude a smoky, Peggy Lee quality.

And apart from traces of a marcel wave that she can’t get out of her hair now Downton has hit the Roaring Twenties, she looks fresh, modern and fashionable – as you’ll know if you’ve seen pictures of her striding through customs on the way to another awards ceremony (she had three Emmy nominations in a row for Lady Mary) in spray-on jeans and outsize superstar shades.



That particular get-up might be part of her “Britney from Beverly Hills” look, Britney being the character she sometimes assumes to avoid being recognised. She can even do the voice, a grating Valley-girl thing: “The waiter came overrrrrr,” she’ll go. “And he totally thought I was Lady Mary. Oh. My. Gahd!”


READ MORE HERE:
http://www.express.co.uk/life-style/life/524006/Downton-Abbey-Michelle-Dockery-Lady-Mary

SPOILER: 10 Best Moments Of Downton Abbey Season 5, Episode 2: It Just Got Interesting...

SOFEMININE



Barrow’s a bitch

Come on Tom, was telling everyone about Baxter really necessary?! Poor Mr Moseley. Just when you get used to him looking somewhat happy, he gets shot down to looking his usual slightly bewildered and vaguely unhappy self again. This is why you have no friends so you can stop miserably smoking by the fireplace feeling all lonely already.

A man comes to see a painting

In an interesting plot twist for Downton Abbey, a posh man visits to view a painting. But since he looks creepy and seems to be hitting on Cora, we wonder if there could be more to this oh-so-interesting plot line. Could an affair be on the cards for Downton’s most nasal resident?

Bye bye Jimmy

Jimmy leaves and no one especially cares that much, except Thomas of course. Although Thomas is a bitter fellow, maybe all he needs is someone to love. Is he ever going to find a sexy yet caring partner who doesn’t try to have him arrested when he goes in for a kiss? We hope so!



Lady Edith becomes Marigold’s Godmother

Lady Edith managed to keep her out-of-wedlock child a secret, and yet goes to see her everyday, tells everyone she’s paying for her education and is determined to help raise her. So why does NO ONE bat an eyelid? Except the dashing fireman’s wife of course, who we get the feeling will not be accommodating to Marigold’s birth mother.

Anna shopping for condoms

In what was definitely the funniest part of the episode, a horny Mary sends poor Anna to risk her dignity by ordering what we can only assume is an old fashioned condom for Lady Mary’s planned weekend exploits. Anna hiding from other customers to get her gear was just brilliant.

King on the wireless

“Why’s it called a wireless when there’s so many wires?” Kitchen assistant Daisy: asking the big questions. Upstairs and downstairs gathered to listen to the radio, and there was some fun ‘it’s just a phase’ talk that we could all smugly giggle at. Oh you 1920s kids!


READ MORE HERE: http://www.sofeminine.co.uk/news-celebrities/10-best-moments-of-downton-abbey-season-5-episode-2-it-just-got-inte-s1049040.html

9 new Downton Abbey pictures: What do they reveal?

DIGITAL SPY
By Alex FletcherMonday, Sep 22 2014, 8:05am EDT



Downton Abbey sizzled on its return to ITV last night with over 8 million viewers tuning in for the sexed up fifth series premiere.

But what is in store for next Sunday? Here are 9 new pictures released today that offer some clues.

2. The arrival of a wireless in the house draws a crowd. Lady Rose tries to convince them that it's a good idea.



4. What has left Carson reaching for a drink?

7. Could Simon Bricker drive a wedge between Cora and Robert?




Read more: http://www.digitalspy.com/british-tv/s183/downton-abbey/news/a598157/9-new-downton-abbey-pictures-what-do-they-reveal.html#~oQGNS53pOevLUj#ixzz3E8xzxRSF 
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