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Downton Abbey changed their lives: meeting with two leading actresses of the series

2022-04-27T15:05:17.804Z


Seven years after the series ended, the adventures of English aristocrats and their servants continue on the big screen in Downton Abbey: A New Era. Meeting with two of its leading actresses.


Did you miss the Crawley family's violins, lace, tea and labrador?

They are back in

Downton Abbey: A New Era

, a new film in theaters on April 27 (after

Downton Abbey

, by Michael Engler, released in 2019) which continues the adventures of the family of

so British aristocrats.

and their servants, seven years after the end of the series (1).

With a change of scenery: following an unexpected inheritance received by the venerable dowager, Lady Violet (still just as bugloss Maggie Smith), some of the protagonists go to the south of France, to face a suspicious Nathalie Baye and a Jonathan Zaccaï (for once) clean-shaven.

While the sun, the sea and the palm trees undermine their emotional defenses (but never the good behavior of their crossed jackets), Lady Mary, eldest daughter who has remained in England, must deal with a film crew who has come to shoot a film in the family castle.

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So many upheavals that shake the Crawleys and their entourage, placing them before the dilemma that has underpinned many episodes of the series: what attitude to adopt in the face of a changing or even disappearing world?

To hold on to one's habits and traditions, even if it means being broken?

Or accept, oneself, to metamorphose?

So many questions addressed in the company of Laura Carmichael (Edith Crawley, youngest of the daughters of the family) and Elizabeth McGovern (Cora Crawley, her mother), passing through Paris.

In video,

Downton Abbey: A New Era

, the trailer

Grow with your character

Madame Figaro.- How did you feel when you found your characters and the other actors?


Laura Carmichael.-

It was like coming home, reuniting with her family.


Elizabeth McGovern.-

Everything was very easy, very natural.

I wish I had more stories to tell, but we've been working together for so long... It's very easy, very fluid to slip into the adventure again.

How does playing a character for 12 years feel?


EMG.-

Television is the only way to accompany a character in this way, to see him grow old with you.

It is the only medium that allows you to deepen and develop your relationship with others, as is the case in life.

It is a very singular experience, which had never happened to me before in my career.


LC.-

We took a break after the end of the series, and it was good not to be Edith for a while.

At the end of filming, we had all felt this need for freedom, to be someone else, to embody other characters.

Finding them was a real joy.

It's strange but in this way,

Read also “Downton Abbey” for dummies

You talk about growing with your characters.

Did they ever change you too, or teach you something about yourself?


EMG.-

I don't know if I learned anything from Cora.

Because as soon as I stop interpreting it, I forget it.

And that if I was in his situation (

wealthy American, Cora married a British aristocrat for her title, while he needed his money, editor's note

), I would have gone totally crazy.

She is so quick to accept her situation, for which she has never been able to make a personal choice... I would find it difficult.

In any case, interpreting it didn't calm me down...


LC.-

Edith has acquired more freedom and ambition over the seasons.

And it's worth, from time to time, remembering that I can lean on this power that I myself don't have every day.

The sense of assurance that comes with being a Crawley and walking into a room has also become a bit of a part of me.


EMG.-

I see what you mean.

The Crawleys all have that confidence because they were born with it.


LC.-

Exactly.

I don't, but it's good to know what it does.

And sometimes, to use that feeling to bluff a little...

"My daughters would never agree to what I agreed to."

Elizabeth McGovern

The way we look at

women

, in fiction and elsewhere, has changed a lot since the series launched in 2010. Has this changed the way you approach your characters?


EMG.-

What has changed is above all the way I consider my past, and my life.

I opened my eyes to what I could accept as a young actress in Hollywood (

Elizabeth McGovern began her career in 1980, at age 19, in

Robert Redford's People Like Others

, before shooting with Milos Forman in

Ragtime

in 1980, and Sergio Leone in

Once Upon a Time in America

, in 1984, Editor's note

).

I am blown away by the idea that women now have the right to say “no”.

I am one of those people who had to accept things without even questioning them.

The world was the world, you had to navigate it, and deal with it.

My daughters would never accept what I accepted.

It's a huge change, and it makes me feel good.

The state of the world is very depressing right now, but it is something to be happy about.

Other looks

Edith, who is a journalist, takes advantage of her trip to France to do a report.

Her character says something about the

women who worked

more and more at that time...


LC.-

That's what I prefer to play.

At the end of the series, Edith married a rich man, one could have feared that she would stop everything.

It would have been such a betrayal of everything her character has built up over the entire series!

It's a relief to find her like this: yes, she's in love, married, a mother again.

But the "happy ending" does not stop there.

She continues to work and her husband supports her.

It's awesome.

Full screen

Elizabeth McGovern in

Downton Abbey: A New Era

2022 Focus Features LLC.

All Right Reserved

Elizabeth, Cora is like you, an American immersed in a very English context.

It gives her another look at what she's going through.

Is this also your case?


EMG.-

Yes, it is a little marginal.

She is not so corseted by all these traditions.

In life too, it sometimes had this effect on me (

Elizabeth McGovern has been married since 1992 to Briton Simon Curtis, the director of the film, editor's note

): the English are so obsessed with details, it's a mystery for me.

Their titles of nobility, in particular: I don't care at all, whereas they are very straddling on this.

It doesn't make any sense to me.


LC.-

It also shows in the way Cora supports her daughters, against all odds.

An English girl might not have done it the same way.

Even Mary, the eldest, in one of her cruel moments, said to him, "You can't understand, you're American!"

More than entertainment

Julian Fellowes, the creator of

Downton Abbey,

believes that the primary function of this series is to entertain

.

But doesn't it go a little further?


LC.-

I think what he means is that he never forced himself to give the series an overly documentary side.

Julian has his own world, his own tone, which makes

Downton Abbey

so different from shows of the same genre.

And he has many resources: he can write scenes of pure comedy, and others where the emotion is very deep, subtle.

This is why the series has always excited me: we are in the register of drama, it is obvious, but I have always loved the fact of being able to be also on restraint.


EMG.-

It is precisely because Julian's priority is to entertain, to ensure that the plot is in perpetual motion, interesting, that messages manage to get through.

About history, about the state of our society as it was not so long ago, about the psychological springs we have inherited.

We learn something, but without having the impression that we are being lectured.

"With

Downton Abbey

, you learn something, but without feeling like you're being lectured."

Elizabeth McGovern

The series and the film also deal with our attitude towards change.

If we are ready to accept it, or if we refuse it categorically...


EMG.-

Yes, and that really immerses us in this tension between what is good about change, and the advantages that there are to keep things in place.

We face it every day.

Especially in our fast-changing society: the Internet was invented just 50 years ago and it has transformed the world in ways that I'm not sure you can really emotionally support.

It's too much for mere human beings to keep pace with such technological advances.

Going back to the past, remembering where we came from, is very comforting.

Downton Abbey,

is it really over?


EMG.-

We'll see!

What is certain is that we will always be happy to meet again.

(1)

Downton Abbey: A New Era

, by Simon Curtis (2h06)

Source: lefigaro

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