But dry your eyes, Downton fans: Even though the show is definitely ending, executive producer Gareth Neame confirms that a follow-up movie is still a possibility. “But we don’t have a script or plan yet”, he said – “yet” being the word the assembled press seized upon. He didn’t specify if it might be a TV or big-screen project.
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The cast of Downton Abbey gathered in Beverly Hills on Saturday to say goodbye to TV critics in a poignent final season press conference.
The high-toned soap opera about the upstairs and downstairs occupants of a stately English mansion dealing with early 20th-century social change will end production August 15.
Its sixth and final season will begin airing in September in the U.K. and in January on PBS in the United States.
It was time for the series itself to end while still popular and acclaimed, Neame said.
The cast only has two weeks left of filming on the series, and they’ve already wrapped production at Highclere Castle, which stands in for Downton on the show. “It was [creator] Julian [Fellows] who said he felt it would be a bit truncated that way…so he wanted to do another nine episodes to make the stories land in a more appropriate way”, Hugh Bonneville (Robert Crawley) revealed on stage. The cast and crew marked the occasion by taking a “team photo” in the dining room, where the longest scenes were filmed.
Laura Carmichael, who plays Lady Edith, said it was unusual saying good-bye to Highclere, which played the Crawley home for six seasons.
Michelle Dockery said she and Ms. Carmichael wandered the halls and grounds for one last time. “And it’s brought home to [the characters] when we go to visit a neighbor in the county who is literally having to sell the family silver. It was really amusing”. “And if we tried to eek out to Season 8 it would have felt like we were running out of ideas”, he said, adding that the show is leaving on a “high note”.
Penelope Wilton (Isobel) talked about her scenes with Emmy victor Maggie Smith, and their characters’ “fractious and affectionate relationship”.
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“He wants to conserve the best of the past, but absolutely understands that the future beckons, and the question in this series is do they succeed”, Hugh added. To which Joanne Froggatt, who played housemaid Anna Bates, replied: “I won’t miss mine!”
