DAME MAGGIE SMITH

Return of the matriarch

Posted on 6 September 2011 - 01:01pm

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ENGLISH actress Dame Maggie Smith, more than any other actor of her generation, has mastered the range of acting – from high drama to high comedy.
Now in her 70s, she continues to deliver exceptional performances, such as her role as Dowager Countess of Grantham in Julian Fellowes’ Downton Abbey.
“I’m just surprised to be doing anything at my age actually. When you think of where I am now and where I’ve come from, I’m pleased and grateful to be standing up and delivering Julian’s great lines,” Smith said in a transcript supplied by Diva Universal.
As for acting, she says it is more than a job. “I love it. It never crossed my mind to be anything else … I’m privileged to do it and I don’t know where I’d be without it.”
Born in Ilford in Essex, England, Smith moved to Oxford when she was four. There was no history of acting in the family; her father was a pathologist, her mother a secretary and her twin brothers were both successful architects.
So it was a surprise to her family when she enrolled at drama school at the age of 16.
Following performances at the Edinburgh Fringe, student revues and in Cabaret, Smith began a career in mainstream theatre at the Old Vic with Laurence Olivier – leading eventually to The National.
What followed was a distinguished career in theatre and film leading to her impeccable Oscar-winning performance in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie followed by a second Academy Award for California Suite.
As well as playing the formidable Violet, the Dowager Countess of Grantham in Julian Fellowes’ Downton Abbey, she can also be seen this autumn playing the grandmother of a boy uncovering a ghost story in Fellowes’ feature film, From Time to Time, based on Lucy M. Boston’s series of books The Chimneys of Green Knowe, set just after the end of the World War II.
“It’s satisfying to play a character such as Violet, and I’ve a lot of fun doing it. This is the third old lady I’ve played for Julian, so I’m getting the hang of it now,”she laughs.
From the outset of Downton Abbey, Violet is clearly trying to hang onto her position as matriarch of the Crawley family – opinionated, immensely proud, passionately loyal to her son Robert and insufferable to her daughter-in-law, whom she has always regarded as a living compromise the family has had to make.
When the entail in her late husband’s will threatens to deprive her grand-daughter Mary of her rightful inheritance and Cora’s (Violet’s daughter-in-law) her money, Violet finds herself joining forces with her.
When asked if they are going to be friends, Violet replies: “We’re allies, my dear. Which can be a great deal more effective.”
When new heir Matthew Crawley (Dan Stevens) and his mother, Isobel (Penelope Wilton), arrive in the village of Downton, the Dowager Countess puts up a veneer of tolerance while secretly thinking up ways to persuade her son he must overthrow the will and extract Cora’s money from the estate.
“When we meet Violet, she is bristly and quite horrid but eventually comes round to being much nicer than she was at the beginning. She mellows a bit by the end of episode seven,” explains Smith.
When the Dowager Countess and Isobel Crawley meet at the beginning of episode two, an unexpected battle of wills ensues between the two women.
During the course of the series, both characters find themselves humiliated by the other with personal battles lost and won along the way.
“I’m cross with Mrs Crawley and her son because I feel they are going to get away with the estate and the money – it has all happened because some family members have gone down in the Titanic and I consider these Crawleys to be common upstarts.”
Off the set, the relationship between Smith and Wilton couldn’t be in greater contrast. “Mercifully, it’s not the same in real life. We get on well and often take strolls together around the grounds of Highclere.”
In fact, Wilton says that apart from having a great script to work with, one of the key reasons for taking the part was to work with Maggie Smith.
Violet is the third character Smith has played in a Fellowes drama. She plays Mrs Oldknow in From Time to Time, and Lady Trentham in Gosford Park, a character inspired by Fellowes’ great aunt.
“What I think is brilliant is that this is Julian’s original script and not an adaptation of anything and to have these wonderful ideas to work with, that you know are original, is quite simply stunning.”
For Fellowes, the choice of Smith to play the Dowager Countess was an easy one.
“Maggie Smith has a unique sense of comedy, based on a somewhat ironic view of real life, making it both funnier and more sad.
“But perhaps her greatest ability, or at least the one that most intrigues me, is how she can convey deep and powerful emotion without a trace of sentimentality,” explains Fellowes.
Downton Abbey premieres Sept 8 at 11pm on Diva Universal (Astro Channel 702). This series was nominated for 11 Emmy Awards this year.