Set in 1928, Downton Abbey: A New Period heralds the much-anticipated cinematic return of this international phenomenon, reuniting the beloved forged as they go on a grand journey to the South of France to uncover the thriller of the Dowager Countess’s (Dame Maggie Smith) newly inherited villa.
With half the forged sunning themselves on the Riviera, Michelle Dockery’s Girl Mary Crawley holds the fort at Downton because the aristocratic household seat reluctantly opens its doorways to a movie crew from the Silent Period. Naturally, the “downstairs” characters are delighted by this new growth whereas “upstairs” should grin and bear it as a necessity given Downton’s crumbling disrepair; this new inflow of movie cash will pave the best way for the longer term.
Directed by Simon Curtis from a script by award-winning Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes, this new iteration was filmed through the pandemic, and hopes to supply an incentive for pandemic-weary audiences to return to the cinema. Reuniting all of the sequence’ regulars – beloved over six seasons and one earlier movie – Downton Abbey: A New Period additionally welcomes a trio of newcomers within the glamorous type of Laura Haddock and Dominic West’s fabulous film stars, Myrna Dalgleish and Man Dexter, with Hugh Dancy enjoying the silent movie’s director, Jack Barber.
FilmInk chats to Downton’s new faces…
Dominic West and Hugh Dancy in Downton Abbey: A New Period.
How was it to be newcomers on this set?
Dominic West: “I used to be completely terrified. It’s so iconic once you go up there and see the previous citadel which I didn’t know was actual, really. My first scene was with a lot of the household, and it was terrifying. I couldn’t get my strains out. I couldn’t keep in mind them. I used to be blushing. I used to be sweating. I hadn’t actually skilled that earlier than, not since I used to be beginning out, in order that was initially fairly horrifying. Nevertheless it’s an extremely good group of people that all know one another rather well, so it shortly relaxes you, and everybody’s having amusing actually.”
Laura Haddock: “It was simply the very best set to be welcomed onto. They’re all nice they usually know one another so nicely and it’s actually pleasant and foolish and mischievous. However Hugh Bonneville [Lord Grantham] mentioned to me, ‘This is among the most relaxed units, Laura. It’s nice right here. Julian Fellowes is very easy going, and if you happen to ever need to advert lib or heat up the script or no matter, you’ll be able to. He’s actually encouraging of that.’ So, clearly, I’m sat subsequent to Hugh at an enormous dinner desk with the entire forged pondering that is fairly alright and that should be true. And so, within the subsequent take, I simply added little fine details. However Hugh was an absolute joker as a result of that’s not how this set works. You do not advert lib. He was so naughty, and set it up as being a very enjoyable atmosphere, after which I used to be on tenterhooks…he was very naughty!”
Hugh Dancy: “The expertise was nice from begin to end. I didn’t know what it was going to be like as a result of, clearly, nearly everyone else has been doing this for a very long time and I knew they might be a tight-knit group. However they welcomed us with open arms and it was very straightforward.”
Michelle Dockery and Hugh Dancy in Downton Abbey: A New Period.
How did you discover the chemistry between your director character Jack Barber and Michelle Dockery’s Girl Mary?
Hugh Dancy: “Michelle and I and Simon, our director, had an hour or one thing and we simply shortly learn by way of our scenes and I mentioned, ‘Oh, you’re going to do it like that?’ After which we had been filming it. It’s just about specified by the script. Julian’s scripts are actually tight. All the pieces you want is in there, and you then simply hope you’ll be able to convey one thing else as nicely.”
How was the filming of the movie inside a movie, and the way surreal is it to be on the centre of two crews – one actual and one pretend?
Laura Haddock: “It was foolish at occasions and actually enjoyable. We did get the giggles loads.”
Dominic West: “The previous know-how was fairly attention-grabbing. I liked it. It was fascinating how the sound man is an important particular person within the room, together with all the celebs and every little thing. And it was hilarious, the entire form of meta factor, once you’re self-referential. I keep in mind after I first learn it, I assumed this was Julian’s likelihood to form of vent his spleen about no matter totally different actors he may need labored with.”
Laura Haddock: “And Maggie Smith has an excellent line within the film the place she says, ‘Why would you need to be an actor? I’d reasonably work down the mines’, or one thing like that. It’s simply so humorous being stood on a set, all of us actors, with Maggie Smith saying that to you, while being an actor enjoying an actor. So there are many enjoyable, little twisty moments like that.”
Kevin Doyle and Michelle Dockery in Downton Abbey: A New Period.
How was it enjoying a director, whereas being directed?
Hugh Dancy: “It was complicated and attention-grabbing as a result of Simon [Curtis], was directing me as a director. He was additionally directing his personal spouse, Elizabeth McGovern, so it was all an advanced swirl. I notably loved, whereas enjoying a director, watching him giving notes to his personal spouse. I assumed: That’s attention-grabbing, and complex. However I liked it. I really don’t have any huge ambition to be a director, which is a query that actors get requested typically. I occur to love being an actor. So appearing as a director was simply sufficient for me.”
Have been you interested by any specific director once you had been enjoying your character?
Hugh Dancy: “I wasn’t and, if I did, I in all probability wouldn’t say. However I wasn’t as a result of that model of directing was so totally different. Notably in the beginning when there’s no sound; we’re making a silent film. I did notably get pleasure from these scenes the place, as they might have accomplished, I used to be standing behind the digital camera and simply narrating the factor and shouting on the actors, ‘Kiss her!’ and so forth.”
How did you get on with the actors who had been enjoying your actors, because it had been, that you just had been having to direct? Did you develop a separate sort of relationship with them due to that?
Hugh Dancy: “Dom and Laura? No, I didn’t…my screaming at them and telling them what to do didn’t bleed over in any respect. I don’t assume that will wash with both of these folks…by no means!”
The film inside a film is enjoyable to look at. What analysis did you do into the silent film period and shifting into the talkies, as we see on this movie?
Dominic West: “I didn’t actually know the interval a lot in any respect when it comes to Hollywood. I all the time thought a variety of actors of my classic, after we went from England to America, that we had been pioneers in that method, beginning out on American telly and all that. And, after all, it was not true in any respect. They had been doing that proper from the beginning in Hollywood, and there’s an excellent e book by Sheridan Morley referred to as The Hollywood Raj about all these English actors like Charlie Chaplin and Stan Laurel. My character is predicated on Roland Coleman, and all these English actors who went out to Hollywood and made their names and had been enormous within the 20s and 30s. However with lots of these early actors, you’ve by no means heard their names, as a result of they’re largely forgotten. And I discovered that fairly reassuring that the majority actors are forgotten fairly quickly after they’ve been these huge stars. It was a very attention-grabbing interval, and I didn’t know the way a lot Hollywood was indebted to English theatre and music corridor and vaudeville and all that. I knew about Charlie Chaplin, however it’s a captivating interval: the beginning of Hollywood and the way a lot the Brits needed to do with that.”
Laura Haddock and Michael Fox in Downton Abbey: A New Period.
Laura, your character of icy film star Myrna Dalgleish is probably essentially the most difficult as a result of she is unlikable at occasions. How did you strategy that?
Laura Haddock: “Behind the scenes, she’s going by way of an unlimited quantity. So I held on tight to the fact of this girl’s life, which seemed very totally different from the life that she had. And I needed that change to be fairly important, like when she has the dialog with Anna Bates [Joanne Froggatt] and has some dwelling truths informed to her. You then begin to break down an individual and realise that everyone is so multi-layered, after which that provided up an area the place she might converse and inform the reality and have a very trustworthy dialog about how terrified she was. When persons are scared, they typically ramp up no matter their specific emotional response is to a scenario, and hers was being demanding and diva-ish and impolite. And that’s what she was leaning into as a result of she was scared.”
Did you analysis any actresses transitioning from the silent footage into the talkies?
Laura Haddock: “It’s actually difficult to speak about with out actually going into the trivia of it, as a result of it’s very intricate, and there’s an actual play on discovering her voice. That was an enormous factor all through this entire filming course of with Myrna. It was my headline – discovering her voice – and I believe a variety of actresses went by way of this on the finish of the 20s. There have been actresses whose first language wasn’t English, so shifting out of silent motion pictures into a unique period of filmmaking was nearly unimaginable; it was terrifying. Myrna appears like she has a bit of little bit of impostor syndrome, which made her much more forthcoming and bolshie and outspoken. However her being outspoken was the factor she was most scared of being, so it was an actual double edged sword along with her. So the journey I went on find her voice was actually attention-grabbing. The way you sound is how you’re feeling on the within. It impacts every little thing, about the place you’ve come from; what your previous is; what your story is. It impacts every little thing.”
Elizabeth McGovern and Laura Carmichael in Downton Abbey: A New Period.
What was the very best new ability you discovered enjoying your function on this movie?
Dominic West: “Playing? Wielding a croquet mallet possibly? I didn’t must do a lot besides swan round and attempt to look good. I’ve been doing that for thirty years!”
Laura Haddock: “Balancing that wig on my head? I had a really tall wig.”
The costumes are unbelievable. Any favourites? Like Laura’s unbelievable blue coat that you just arrive in?
Laura Haddock: “Oh, yeah. Love that blue coat. We actually needed Myrna to face out and be a totally totally different color palette from the opposite girls within the movie, and so we performed with these ice blues, lilacs and pinks; simply sort of popping all of that after which along with her very peroxide, blonde hair as nicely. It was a really contrasting picture. Anna’s crew constructed a variety of these clothes from scratch so I went in for a whole bunch of fittings, simply tweaking and constructing with all bustles and corsets. I believe one in all my costumes had about seven or eight layers of skirt and bustle and bracket and costume and corsets.”
Dominic West: “It was simply heaven, however there was extra as a result of Man is from Hollywood the place that they had relaxed all of the formal English Edwardian look, so I used to be all in beige/camel and wonderful lotions and simply these great cricket whites and stuff. I liked that. What a stunning time.”
Penelope Wilton and Maggie Smith in Downton Abbey: A New Period.
What impact do you assume your character has on a number of the characters that we all know so nicely from Downton Abbey? As a result of clearly it is a little bit of a change in temper when a film is being made?
Dominic West: “Sure, very a lot so. I sweep all of them off their toes! They’re astonished on the glamour which they’re used to in a form of English method however they’re not used to the Hollywood glamour. That’s what our two characters convey to Downton. It’s an entire new world and barely extra relaxed and a extra democratic glamour that, definitely for my character, has amorous outcomes and implications. I don’t know what I can say actually? However he falls in love and it’s actually thrilling and fairly surprising…”
What had been your most memorable moments from this set?
Hugh Dancy: “The factor that basically struck dwelling for me was, due to the timing, it had been some time since I’ve labored in any respect. It had definitely been fairly a very long time since I’ve labored in England on this sort of a challenge, in interval costume. And clearly it doesn’t get rather more iconic than this. It was unbelievable to search out myself within the aspect drawing room, after we weren’t even filming, with all these individuals who, in their very own rights, are iconic as these characters that I’ve admired for many years truthfully. After which I realised that they had been all simply gossiping and enjoying video games on their telephone and exhibiting photographs of their children. It was actually shifting for me truthfully, and really shifting to really feel a part of it.”
Laura Haddock: “There was a normal sense of everyone being so grateful to be again at work. And, for us, schedules can get actually robust typically and you may get a bit of bit whingey at occasions in regards to the depth of the schedules however, on this job, we had been so grateful that we might have labored for hours. Simply to be again at work, with units all up and operating. Sure, we had all of the COVID guidelines and rules, however you’ll do something to get again to creating a movie once more as a result of we hadn’t accomplished it for therefore lengthy. So we simply all got here again collectively and we had been on a excessive, identical to children at drama faculty, rehearsing a play and placing it on and everybody’s gonna come see it. It was good to really feel that giddiness once more as a result of you’ll be able to take it as a right however really, what we do is a lot enjoyable.”
Dominic West: “For me, it was working with Maggie Smith. I sat subsequent to her round that well-known desk for 2 or three days and obtained to talk to her and hearken to her hilarious jokes and sly remarks. And, at one level, she says that she’s gonna throw within the towel. She mentioned, ‘That’s it. I’m not going to do it anymore.’ And I mentioned, ‘What? Appearing?’ And he or she mentioned, ‘Yeah, no extra appearing.’ And I mentioned, ‘Theatre as nicely?’ And he or she mentioned, ‘I’m not doing theatre both, and this shall be my final job.’ That was extremely emotional. And really, I used to be within the scene that she shot final within the present and I assumed, ‘Oh my god, I’m witnessing historical past right here.’ And it was extremely emotional and I used to be speaking to her afterwards within the make-up trailer and it was very shifting that this nice, nice actress wasn’t going to behave anymore. After which I went again the next week, and I mentioned, ‘It’s so unhappy that Maggie will not be making any extra movies.’ They mentioned, ‘That’s nonsense! She’s booked one other movie! She begins subsequent week!’”
Lesley Nicol and Sophie McShera in Downton Abbey: A New Period.
Why do you assume audiences love Downton Abbey a lot, and are anticipating this new movie a lot?
Hugh Dancy: “For individuals who have been following the sequence for therefore lengthy, it’s reassuring, proper? It’s one thing that they’ve identified for longer than this pandemic, and that’s significant.”
Dominic West: “Coming after lockdown, I form of look nostalgically again on the early 2000s as an age of innocence nearly – earlier than Trump and COVID and Ukraine and every little thing. It’s so good to have this household from that point come again to you and form of offer you a hug and say, ‘All the pieces’s going to be alright.’”
Downton Abbey: A New Period is launched in cinemas on April 28. Click on right here for our overview.