Just a few weeks in the past, among the solid gathered to observe “Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale.” Though that they had shot the film final summer season, it was solely then that stars Hugh Bonneville and Michelle Dockery realized the movie was the last word end result of 15 years of labor.
“Michelle and I squeezed one another’s palms as we watched the ultimate frames of the film,” Bonneville, 61, says, talking alongside Dockery over Zoom in late August. Every are of their separate houses, however there’s a way of convivial affection between them after taking part in Robert Crawley, the Earl of Grantham, and his eldest daughter, Girl Mary, for thus lengthy. He acknowledges, “It actually did really feel like the top, that point.”
“It did,” Dockery agrees. “And we’ve had quite a lot of endings. With the sequence, it felt like we didn’t actually know the place it might transcend that. It felt fairly definitive on the time. And even after the primary movie there was no assure there was going to be a second. However this one does really feel like the goodbye.”
“There’s all the time talks of spinoffs in outer house and all types of different iterations of it,” Bonneville jokes. “You uncover the fortress has obtained a rocket ship beneath.”
Extra significantly, he provides, “However for us lot, that is definitely the top.”
For the reason that sequence finale of “Downton Abbey” aired in 2015 after six seasons and 52 episodes, creator Julian Fellowes has written three movies, concluding with “Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale” (in theaters Sept. 12). Though the flicks have been by no means inevitable, Fellowes is obvious that that is the final time these explicit characters will seem onscreen collectively.
“It’s definitely the top of the unique solid,” Fellowes says, talking individually over Zoom from his dwelling in England. “It’s been fairly a very long time collectively, however, sure, it’s the finish. Whether or not there are any extra ‘Downton’ rip-offs or connections or no matter, I couldn’t let you know. There’s nothing agency for the time being. However no matter comes again, it gained’t be with this authentic solid. We’ve come to a pure ending.”
Hugh Bonneville in “Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale.”
(Rory Mulvey / Focus Options)
“The Grand Finale,” written by Fellowes and directed by Simon Curtis, brings the Crawley household to 1930, a time of profound change in British society. Robert is reluctantly handing the property over to Mary. It’s a generational shift that harks again to the present’s premiere, which noticed Robert and his spouse, Cora (Elizabeth McGovern), grappling with the way forward for each their eldest daughter and Downton Abbey. Though Robert started passing the torch in 2022’s “Downton Abbey: A New Period,” it’s solely now that he’s reckoning along with his personal mortality. Mary, in the meantime, is within the midst of a public divorce scandal that threatens to derail her repute.
“Placing Mary right into a scenario the place she is divorced largely in opposition to her will pushed her into the fashionable world in a means she may not have gone if she’d been left to her personal units,” Fellowes says. “It allowed me to create a barrier between her and the world to which she has been born. She has to reinvent herself.”
Bonneville and Dockery have been taking part in father and daughter since they first met on the day of the present’s first read-through in 2010. Dockery was then largely unknown, whereas Bonneville had a thriving profession onscreen, in movies like “Notting Hill” and “Iris,” and in theater. Each recall there being a buzz across the sequence, which Fellowes wrote after the success of his Oscar-winning script for Robert Altman’s satirical 2001 homicide thriller “Gosford Park.”
“Getting that function was large,” Dockery says. “I’ll always remember the cellphone name. And we had such a good time on that first sequence, didn’t we? There was undoubtedly a sense of: We’re on to one thing actually good right here.”
“However on the similar time, by way of publicity and attempting to get the present seen by the press, nobody was ,” Bonneville jumps in. “Costume drama was lifeless. I keep in mind speaking to [producer] Gareth Neame in regards to the concept of a three-season possibility and he stated, ‘Don’t fear, this isn’t going to run past seven episodes.’ So there was an innocence to that first season. There have been no expectations on us, and we had a beautiful time.”
He laughs, including, “By the point we began capturing Season 2, they needed to have individuals pulling photographers out of timber.”
Regardless of that early lack of press protection, “Downton Abbey” shortly turned a worldwide phenomenon. It went on to be nominated for 69 Emmys, profitable 15, and the solid gained the Display screen Actors Guild’s ensemble award 3 times.
“There was such a circus round it,” Dockery remembers. “We have been flying everywhere in the world. Coming again to work on every season did really feel like coming dwelling. Not rather a lot had modified. We have been the identical. What I cherished about doing ‘Downton’ is that it felt very homely.”
Michelle Dockery and Hugh Bonneville in “Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale.”
(Rory Mulvey / Focus Options)
“We felt a fantastic consolation in getting again collectively,” Bonneville agrees. “It was such as you’d gone again into the stockade and you may shut the gate and get on with the work.”
When the sequence ended, there have been speedy rumors of a follow-up movie, but it surely took a couple of years for everybody to come back again collectively. The primary “Downton Abbey” film arrived in 2019, adopted by “A New Period” in 2022. Reuniting an ensemble solid that included Maggie Smith was a problem for the filmmakers, however Bonneville says everybody has all the time genuinely wished to be there.
“We weren’t going to come back again if all of us loathed one another,” he says. “We have been very fortunate that means.” He provides, grinning, “Even Maggie’s cane didn’t hit too many individuals.”
The dowager countess haunts the movie, Fellowes says. Her character died on the finish of “A New Period,” earlier than the legendary actor’s personal dying at 89 in September 2024. “The Grand Finale” was shot whereas Smith was nonetheless alive, and the solid felt each her presence and her absence strongly on set.
“We talked about her rather a lot on this final film,” Dockery says. “As a result of when somebody is missed, you discuss them.”
“Her dying scene felt like a farewell, and I mirrored on the truth that I referred to as her mum for 12 years and that was very unusual,” Bonneville provides. “The sense of her legacy was actually vivid for me on the finish of the second film. On this one, there was a mourning of the fictional character and we have been conscious that we weren’t filming together with her. The truth that she did move later that 12 months does make the movie really feel like an applicable memorial to her.”
Loss of life has all the time been a part of the material of the storytelling on “Downton Abbey.” Followers are nonetheless grieving the lack of the third Crawley sister, Girl Sybil (Jessica Brown Findlay), who died in childbirth in Season 3, in addition to Mary’s first husband, Matthew (Dan Stevens), who died that very same season. It’s purposeful for Fellowes that the sequence and the movies have addressed the ephemeral nature of life, one thing that’s additionally current in “The Grand Finale.” Not solely is the movie about Mary stepping up as head of the property, but it surely’s additionally about how Robert and Cora transfer on.
“Once you’re accepting that your function with the property, with the household enterprise, is completed and it’s time to let your youngsters have their time, you’re additionally accepting that you just’re going to die and that your life is coming into its remaining chapter,” Fellowes says. “Once you’re younger, you assume you’re going to be the primary human being to not die and also you’ll stay without end. Then it’s important to begin acknowledging that dying is a risk.”
“The simplest factor would have been for Robert to plow on till he really pegged out and by which era the property most likely would have been run into the bottom or mismanaged,” Bonneville says. “It’s very fashionable that Mary’s there to deal with the property till [her son] George is of age. And he or she’s the best particular person to do it.”
“She could be very resourceful,” Dockery agrees of Mary’s tenacity and skill to think about a brand new future for Downton, significantly new methods of funding the property. “She thinks exterior the field, and issues are starting to vary, and persons are beginning to assume in a different way.”
McGovern, who performed Bonneville’s spouse onscreen twice earlier than being solid on “Downton Abbey,” says Cora’s emotional flexibility has all the time helped pave the best way for the extra cussed Robert.
“The story resonated for each of us very personally as a result of we’re negotiating that subsequent section of our life in some ways,” she says, talking over Zoom from New York Metropolis. “I really like that ‘Downton Abbey’ is grappling with this stuff that films on that stage by no means grapple with — the concept of characters getting older. Julian created this ensemble that provides one thing for everyone, younger and outdated.”
Robert’s eventual willingness to hearken to motive in “The Grand Finale” was vital to Bonneville. He says the character’s “emotional intelligence appeared to get much less and fewer” throughout some seasons of the present, and he remembers confronting Fellowes about Robert’s incapacity to be form to Mary after Matthew’s dying.
“He stated, ‘Bear with me — it’s all going to be all proper,’” Bonneville remembers. “And he all the time did this. He’d begin off with Robert being utterly out of contact and by the top of the season he’d truly come round to understanding. It was a little bit of a repeated joke that I stored going to Julian, ‘Why has Robert’s IQ gone down?’ However within the remaining movie, he’s the Robert I so loved studying within the first episode.”
“All households are involved with what occurs subsequent,” Fellowes says of the story’s thematic undercurrent. “We make these marriages, we take these jobs, we’ve these youngsters, and nothing is ever fairly as you imagined it might be. You’re all the time having to make changes to the best way issues end up.”
In “The Grand Finale,” Fellowes wished to see how the daddy and daughter’s dynamic had advanced since these early episodes. One explicit second, the place Mary takes Robert to see a London house, reveals their generational stress. The earl is shocked to find that the household would have neighbors and that he’d must “go alongside” the hallway to mattress moderately than ascend the steps as he would in a grand dwelling. (His entitled dissonance remembers Smith’s memorable line “What’s a weekend?”)
“I pushed for that [line] as a result of I really like the concept of going alongside moderately than up and displaying the space from most individuals’s actuality,” Bonneville says, chuckling as he remembers the scene. “It’s symbolic of what’s taking place — the downsizing of life and the handing over of management.”
He provides of Mary, “Robert inevitably rolls his eyes at her antics, however he’s truly much more tolerant than he appears. And I believe he’s secretly delighted that she’s extra adventurous than he ever was.”
On set, McGovern referred to Bonneville and director Curtis (her real-life partner) as her “husbands” and Dockery says McGovern has dubbed her “Docky Daughter.” She’s going to often reply to a textual content from her utilizing the affectionate “Mama.”
“We’ve grown so shut through the years, as all of us have, and that dynamic has been there from the start,” Dockery says. “Laura [Carmichael, who plays her sister Edith] and I have been in our 20s, and it felt like Elizabeth took us underneath her wing and that friendship continued.”
“I’ve all the time cherished Cora and Mary’s relationship, and I believe it’s rather a lot like my relationship with Michelle in some ways,” McGovern tells me. “In the identical means that Cora is barely in awe of Mary as a result of she represents this new kind of girl, I felt like, as an actress, the identical about Michelle.”
The poignant final moments of “The Grand Finale” are satisfying and tearjerking, reflecting each on the pasts and futures of the characters. However whereas it’s an ending, it’s not a closed door.
“This movie has a sense that there’s life past ‘Downton’ for these characters,” Dockery says. “They’re shifting on, which will probably be pretty for the followers. However although it’s the top, it seems like there’s a continuation of the story.”
Though followers gained’t be aware of that subsequent chapter, it’s straightforward to think about the place these characters will go and the way the world round them will proceed to vary. And if Dockery has any concepts about what’s to come back for Mary, she’s going to say no extra.
