Behind the Scenes With the Creator of ‘Downton Abbey’
Published: September 8, 2011
Pulling into the driveway of Julian Fellowes’s manor house in Dorset, in the west country of England, with its 50 acres of grass rippling and trees swaying, as if a director had just called “Action!” to the scenery (indeed, one massive tree was featured in the film “Emma,” starring Gwyneth Paltrow), I recalled the advice Fellowes once said his father gave him: “If you have the misfortune to be born into a generation which must earn its living, you might as well do something amusing.” Photo Illustration Drea Zlanabitnig
Cast members of "Downton Abbey," from left, Hugh Bonneville, Maggie Smith, Michelle Dockery, Rob James-Collier, Elizabeth McGovern, Jim Carter and Dan Stevens.
A Night Out with Julian Fellowes and Bob Balaban
Emma Hardy for The New York Times
Julian Fellowes on the set of "Downton Abbey," at Highclere Castle in Berkshire, England.
Inside the house (“Two houses, really. This side was built in 1633, this new bit in 1840,” he said) with its double-height foyer lined with family portraits, a dining room with a mile-long banquet table and a morning room where Thomas Hardy is said to have written, you might think it doesn’t get more amusing than this. Fellowes has lived here only nine years. The decades before that were often fraught with anxiety, even despair. He toiled as a midlevel character actor for 30 years with 12 rejected screenplays to his name until, incredibly, at age 52, he won an Academy Award for his first produced screenplay, Robert Altman’s
“Gosford Park,” in 2002. But Fellowes, now 62, is the rare sort who, having won a life lottery, did not kick up his heels and make a fool of himself. He has worked like the proverbial dog — or American — for his continued success, and if that means he is more to the manner bought than born, that is fine with him.
He followed his unexpected screenwriting breakthrough with more films —
“Vanity Fair,” with Reese Witherspoon,
“Young Victoria,” with Emily Blunt, and
“The Tourist,” with Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie, among them. He also wrote the book for the musical-theater adaptation of
“Mary Poppins” and the best-selling novel
“Snobs.” Most recently, he created and wrote the wildly successful miniseries
“Downton Abbey.” The multigenerational family costume drama kicks off during the final days of aristocratic England before the First World War, and stars Hugh Bonneville, Maggie Smith and Elizabeth McGovern. It drew record ratings on British television last season; the rights have been sold in more than 100 countries. It scored big here too, when it ran on PBS’s Masterpiece last winter (the second season will begin on Jan. 8). The show received 11 Emmy nominations, including Outstanding Miniseries or Movie and Outstanding Writing, for Fellowes.
I was ushered into Stafford House, as it is called, amid waves of apologies about lunch being cold, not cooked. A few days earlier, a bird’s nest that was lodged in the kitchen chimney caught fire, disabling the stove and filling the house with black smoke. Fellowes was joined by his wife, Emma, who is 15 years his junior, nearly six feet tall and bursting with energetic goodwill. It’s easy to see how Fellowes, at 39, fell in love at first sight, why he agreed to her wishes to have only one child, a son, Peregrine, now 20, because she herself was an only child, and why he stoically allows Emma’s mother to call him Evelyn, not Julian. It seems she had her heart set on her daughter marrying a man called Evelyn, so Evelyn he is. There are worse things.
We sat at one end of the banquet table. Meg, a border collie, took the chair to Emma’s right. Humbug, a dachshund, was soon in Emma’s lap, his head and upper body submerged beneath her sweater. He stayed there, motionless, as she explained what it means to be a lady in waiting, as she is, to Princess Michael of Kent, representing her at functions or accompanying her to events.
As she spoke, Fellowes ate contentedly. He liked his food, he liked his wife, he liked her stories. He wasn’t as keen on the interview — “It’s like holding in your stomach, you can only do it for a bit at a time” — so first he suggested we walk the grounds. I was directed to a small room off the kitchen, stocked with racks of Wellington boots. After eyeballing my feet, Emma chose a pair that fit perfectly, and off we set.
Fellowes chatted amiably, glad to be in the countryside. Initially, I couldn’t understand why he wouldn’t just meet me in London at his Chelsea apartment. “Because it’s overtaken by Emma’s wardrobe,” he’d said. But it became clear during our day together that after a professional lifetime accumulating petty defeats, hurtful setbacks and outright failures, to finally have found a place for himself in such a spectacular setting is enormously meaningful to him. It is a wondrous gift to be a late bloomer, but the decades of fertilizer that nurtured those blossoms remain. The shadow of the B.G. era (Before “Gosford”) reasserts itself regularly. When we stood under the “Emma” tree, he lay his hand on the trunk with a tenderness you might show a child. It is rare to encounter a man his age so plainly defined by gratitude.
Bob Balaban, a producer of “Gosford Park,” recommended Fellowes to Robert Altman to write the screenplay. “Altman asked him to try it, and maybe six weeks later Julian sent the first 75 pages,” Balaban said. “It was clear that he was brilliant and his knowledge of class society, the workings of it, was encyclopedic. This talented writer, moldering away as a relatively unsuccessful actor! That was a brass ring, and he took it. It’s part of the key to his current success, his work ethic. He doesn’t procrastinate. He doesn’t hide. He works like a demon.” 1
Alex Witchel (a.witchel-MagGroup@nytimes.com) is a staff writer for the magazine. She writes the Feed Me column for the Dining section of the Times.
