Fifteen years since “Downton Abbey” first swept viewers away, the long-running and beloved television and movie story of the Crawley family has come to an end with a new film, “Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale.”
Here & Now’s Robin Young spoke with creator Julian Fellowes about the movie and the series that inspired it.
7 questions with Julian Fellowes
Are these ‘Downton’ characters still living for free in your head?
“In one way, of course. I won’t deny that because they’ve been part of my life for 16 years, and it did feel slightly odd. I mean, you know, the daughters were young girls when they first started making the show. Now they’re all married and divorced, and they’ve got babies and God knows what. So, life has moved on for all of us in real life.”
When you first began this project, did you have it all laid out on index cards on a big board? Did you know the arc?
“No, I don’t think I did know that, and I never really know what people have got written on all those cards that hang on those strings across their study, when you see writers in TV shows.
“I think that the show was always about being prepared to accept change, and that if you try to block it, then in the end you will be defeated, and I think that if the show has a message or a moral, that is it. And Mary and her sister Edith are going to be OK because they are both capable of accepting change and moving on.”
Lady Mary is divorced. Society is scandalized. She and her parents are asked to hide under a staircase to avoid being seen by a certain prince and princess. Is this actually a conversation that might take place?
“Oh yes, indeed. Divorce was accepted in America really from the 1890s on, but it was too much longer in Europe. England, I mean, when I was a child in the [1950s], it was still news about people getting divorced. They were no longer excluded from a dance or a dinner party, but in the [1930s] that certainly still had been the case. I felt that the acceptance of divorce was really in many ways the moment that the Victorian era ended and the modern world began.
“But, I had a great aunt, and she had about three husbands, and although her sisters were quite fond of her, she was never invited to anything. She was never seen again, really. There was a slight let-up when she married an American multi-millionaire, which they, you know, found a little bit more acceptable. But he soon hit the high road as well. And then she was out again, and that was that. I mean, this was in my family, which the newspapers make grander than it was. No, still, she was an outcast because she was divorced.”
What about how the downstairs staff is portrayed?
“Well, I think that was part of the period in the films made in the [1930s] and [1940s]. The servant characters very seldom have any lines at all. They come in, they see them serving lunch or serving dinner, but they’re very seldom given any role in the plot.
“In the [1950s], if it had been made, the family would all have been gracious and elegant, and the servants would all have been funny.
“In the [1990s], the servants would all have been victims and the family would have been mendacious and cruel and heartless, but we didn’t go either of those ways; they’re just men and women above stairs and below stairs. They’re trying to do their best, they’re trying to live their lives, and I think that was one of the reasons why the show was so popular, is that we weren’t saying these are the good people and these are the bad people, or these are the important people and these are the unimportant ones. What we were saying is all these people are trying to make the best of their lives.”
Did you ever worry about what became some criticism of the show that yours is a too starry-eyed version of the British class system and the treatment of servants?
“I think it’s completely unrealistic to think that people wanted to be dressed and undressed and waited on by people they disliked. And the idea that you would have a lady’s maid running your bath and scrubbing your back who you disliked, and is that believable? Not to me.”
Lord Grantham is having a hard time as the world changes around him, and he sells his London home.
“Well, the real world was breaking in on these people, as it had to do, and very few families retained their London palaces. I mean, the Spencers, did you know, the family of the late Princess of Wales, even they let it out for businesses and things. But most of those palaces have gone. These houses were eating money. I’ve used that as a sign of the families having to accept change and having to move into the new era on different terms.”
This is the first film without Dame Maggie Smith, who died last year.
“Yes, although I hope she haunts it.
“Well, I hope we feel that her morality, her values, her training of her own family, and all of that has outlived her. And that she’s still, you know, when Mary says, ‘Oh, discussing money at dinner, granny would never approve,’ and I hope that the audience has a sense that Violet may be dead, but she is still alive to her own family as their own mothers and grandmothers are still alive to them. We are all still influenced by the people who we listened to when we were young, who are now long dead, and yet they’re still alive in us.”
This interview was edited for clarity.
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Kalyani Saxena produced and edited this interview for broadcast with Michael Scotto. Scotto also produced it for the web.
This article was originally published on WBUR.org.
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