What Michelle Dockery Will Miss About “Downton Abbey”
Six seasons and a movie.
Talk about a major treat for Downton Abbey fans! The period drama debuted on Jan. 9, 2011 in the U.S. on PBS, and it’s really been over 12 years since we first met the Crawley family and their servants in their stunning home in the English countryside. Who can forget when Theo James’ character died while deflowering Michelle Dockery’s Lady Mary during its freshman run? The series has certainly made an impact, turning Dockery, Dan Stevens and the rest of the cast into major stars and giving us one of TV’s most beloved characters in Maggie Smith’s Dowager Countess, who became a meme with her quips and insults.Â
After ending its initial run in 2015, viewers made a return trip to Downton Abbey when the first film hit theaters in September 2019 followed by Downton Abbey: A New Era in May 2022.
Now, in honor of Smith’s 89th birthday Dec. 28, we’re spilling behind-the-scenes facts about the show, including the real reason behind the series’ most shocking death and which star almost bailed on her audition.
We’re not Laura Linney and this is 15 secrets about Downton Abbey being revealed…
1. The idea for the period drama loosely came from creator Julian Fellowes’ own upbringing with a diplomat father.Â
p>”My mother hadn’t been presented, she wasn’t a [debutante],” he explained to Closer of his own family drama. “My great aunts thought she had ‘caught’ [my father] and they never changed. They eventually tolerated her because she had been delivered of four healthy sons, so she had done her dynastic duty.”
2. Oh, did we mention Fellowes is actually a Baron and a member of the House of Lords?Â
p>3. “We pretty much got all our first choices for every part,” casting director Jill Trevellick admitted to Backstage, confirming Maggie Smith, Hugh Bonneville, Michelle Dockery and Dan Stevens were all “frontrunners” for their respective characters.
4. The hardest role to cast was valet John Bates, with Brendan Coyle ultimately landing the job after over 60 actors were considered because the studio was not convinced Coyle was the right fit for a very specific reason.
p>”We thought of Brendan very early on,” Trevellick explained. “In fact, you could say that Julian wrote that part with Brendan in mind because he’d see him in North and South, and he just felt that Brendan was the actor for the part. We saw Brendan very early on and then there were some qualms at the broadcast end, not because they didn’t like Brendan, but because he’d been in a period genre piece that they feared was a bit close and might even be broadcast at the same time on an opposing channel…Ultimately,
