A couple of 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 fruits of 15 years of labor.
“Michelle and I squeezed each other’s hands as we watched the final frames of the movie,” 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 enjoying Robert Crawley, the Earl of Grantham, and his eldest daughter, Girl Mary, for thus lengthy. He acknowledges, “It really did feel like the end, that time.”
“It did,” Dockery agrees. “And we’ve had a lot of endings. With the series, it felt like we didn’t really know where it would go beyond that. It felt quite definitive at the time. And even after the first film there was no guarantee there was going to be a second. But this one does feel like the goodbye.”
“There’s always talks of spinoffs in outer space and all sorts of other iterations of it,” Bonneville jokes. “You discover the castle has got a rocket ship underneath.”
Extra severely, he provides, “But for us lot, this is certainly the end.”
Because the collection 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 certainly the end of the original cast,” Fellowes says, talking individually over Zoom from his house in England. “It’s been quite a long time together, but, yes, it is the end. Whether there are any more ‘Downton’ rip-offs or connections or whatever, I couldn’t tell you. There’s nothing firm at the moment. But whatever comes back, it won’t be with this original cast. We’ve come to a natural 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 Era,” 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 status.
“Putting Mary into a situation where she is divorced largely against her will pushed her into the modern world in a way she might not have gone if she’d been left to her own devices,” 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 enjoying 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 collection, which Fellowes wrote after the success of his Oscar-winning script for Robert Altman’s satirical 2001 homicide thriller “Gosford Park.”
“Getting that role was massive,” Dockery says. “I’ll never forget the phone call. And we had such a great time on that first series, didn’t we? There was definitely a feeling of: We’re on to something really good here.”
“But at the same time, in terms of publicity and trying to get the show seen by the press, no one was interested,” Bonneville jumps in. “Costume drama was dead. I remember talking to [producer] Gareth Neame about the idea of a three-season option and he said, ‘Don’t worry, this isn’t going to run beyond seven episodes.’ So there was an innocence to that first season. There were no expectations on us, and we had a lovely time.”
He laughs, including, “By the time we started shooting Season 2, they had to have people pulling photographers out of trees.”
Regardless of that early lack of press protection, “Downton Abbey” rapidly grew to become a worldwide phenomenon. It went on to be nominated for 69 Emmys, profitable 15, and the solid gained the Display Actors Guild’s ensemble award 3 times.
“There was such a circus around it,” Dockery remembers. “We were flying all over the world. Coming back to work on each season did feel like coming home. Not a lot had changed. We were the same. What I loved 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 great comfort in getting back together,” Bonneville agrees. “It was like you’d gone back into the stockade and you could shut the gate and get on with the work.”
When the collection ended, there have been rapid rumors of a follow-up movie, however it took just a few years for everybody to return again collectively. The primary “Downton Abbey” film arrived in 2019, adopted by “A New Era” in 2022. Reuniting an ensemble solid that included Maggie Smith was a problem for the filmmakers, however Bonneville says everybody has at all times genuinely wished to be there.
“We weren’t going to come back if we all loathed each other,” he says. “We were very lucky that way.” He provides, grinning, “Even Maggie’s cane didn’t hit too many people.”
The dowager countess haunts the movie, Fellowes says. Her character died on the finish of “A New Era,” earlier than the legendary actor’s personal loss of life 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 a lot on this last movie,” Dockery says. “Because when someone is missed, you talk about them.”
“Her death scene felt like a farewell, and I reflected on the fact that I called her mum for 12 years and that was very strange,” Bonneville provides. “The sense of her legacy was really vivid for me at the end of the second movie. In this one, there was a mourning of the fictional character and we were aware that we weren’t filming with her. The fact that she did pass later that year does make the film feel like an appropriate memorial to her.”
Dying has at all times 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 collection 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, however it’s additionally about how Robert and Cora transfer on.
“When you’re accepting that your role with the estate, with the family business, is done and it’s time to let your children have their time, you are also accepting that you’re going to die and that your life is entering its final chapter,” Fellowes says. “When you’re young, you think you’re going to be the first human being not to die and you’ll live forever. Then you have to start acknowledging that death is a possibility.”
“The easiest thing would have been for Robert to plow on until he truly pegged out and by which time the estate probably would have been run into the ground or mismanaged,” Bonneville says. “It’s very modern that Mary’s there to handle the estate until [her son] George is of age. And she’s the right person to do it.”
“She is very resourceful,” Dockery agrees of Mary’s tenacity and skill to think about a brand new future for Downton, notably new methods of funding the property. “She thinks outside the box, and things are beginning to change, and people are starting to think differently.”
McGovern, who performed Bonneville’s spouse onscreen twice earlier than being solid on “Downton Abbey,” says Cora’s emotional flexibility has at all times helped pave the way in which for the extra cussed Robert.
“The story resonated for both of us very personally because we are negotiating that next phase of our life in many ways,” she says, talking over Zoom from New York Metropolis. “I love that ‘Downton Abbey’ is grappling with these things that movies on that level never grapple with — the idea of characters aging. Julian created this ensemble that gives something for everybody, young and old.”
Robert’s eventual willingness to take heed to cause in “The Grand Finale” was essential to Bonneville. He says the character’s “emotional intelligence seemed to get less and less” throughout some seasons of the present, and he remembers confronting Fellowes about Robert’s lack of ability to be type to Mary after Matthew’s loss of life.
“He said, ‘Bear with me — it’s all going to be all right,’” Bonneville remembers. “And he always did this. He’d start off with Robert being completely out of touch and by the end of the season he’d actually come around to understanding. It was a bit of a repeated joke that I kept going to Julian, ‘Why has Robert’s IQ gone down?’ But in the final film, he’s the Robert I so enjoyed reading in the first episode.”
“All families are concerned with what happens next,” Fellowes says of the story’s thematic undercurrent. “We make these marriages, we take these jobs, we have these children, and nothing is ever quite as you imagined it would be. You’re always having to make adjustments to the way things turn out.”
In “The Grand Finale,” Fellowes wished to see how the daddy and daughter’s dynamic had developed since these early episodes. One explicit second, the place Mary takes Robert to see a London condo, reveals their generational rigidity. The earl is shocked to find that the household would have neighbors and that he’d must “go along” the hallway to mattress slightly than ascend the steps as he would in a grand house. (His entitled dissonance remembers Smith’s memorable line “What is a weekend?”)
“I pushed for that [line] because I love the idea of going along rather than up and showing the distance from most people’s reality,” Bonneville says, chuckling as he remembers the scene. “It’s symbolic of what’s happening — the downsizing of life and the handing over of control.”
He provides of Mary, “Robert inevitably rolls his eyes at her antics, but he’s actually far more tolerant than he seems. And I think he is secretly delighted that she’s more 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 is going to sometimes reply to a textual content from her utilizing the affectionate “Mama.”
“We’ve grown so close over the years, as we all have, and that dynamic has been there from the beginning,” Dockery says. “Laura [Carmichael, who plays her sister Edith] and I were in our 20s, and it felt like Elizabeth took us under her wing and that friendship continued.”
“I’ve always loved Cora and Mary’s relationship, and I think it’s a lot like my relationship with Michelle in many ways,” McGovern tells me. “In the same way that Cora is slightly in awe of Mary because she represents this new sort of woman, I felt like, as an actress, the same 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 isn’t a closed door.
“This film has a feeling that there is life beyond ‘Downton’ for these characters,” Dockery says. “They are moving on, which will be lovely for the fans. But even though it’s the end, it feels like there’s a continuation of the story.”
Though followers gained’t be aware about 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 alter. And if Dockery has any concepts about what’s to return for Mary, she is going to say no extra.
