Downton Abbey
THE OFFICIAL FILM COMPANION
EMMA MARRIOTT
FOREWORD BY JULIAN FELLOWES
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FOREWORD
It seems strange to write it now but when, a decade ago, Gareth Neame suggested that I might like to create the series that later became Downton Abbey, I wasn’t all that enthusiastic. Some years before, I had written a film called Gosford Park, examining the lives of a group of house guests, and their servants, at a shooting party in 1932, and Gareth’s idea was that I should revisit the same territory, only this time for television. At first, it seemed like asking for a second slice of cake, and anyway, the underlying message of the film had been that this kind of life was coming to an end for all but a minuscule minority. But the last problem was solved by moving the starting point back by twenty years, from 1932 to 1912, and soon I found myself considering issues that interested me but had never before found an outlet in my work.
What was it like for that tidal wave of American heiresses who came to the rescue of the British aristocracy in the 1890s and 1900s after twenty or thirty years, separated as they were from the values of the New World? How would it be for a man to inherit a position and an estate when they had grown up in an entirely different way? I had a friend who arrived on these shores as the heir to a great name when he had started life in a different culture entirely. Could he make a success of it? In real life, as far as my friend was concerned, the answer was yes and he did, very much so, but how would it be for Matthew Crawley?
And so gradually, as often happens when you start to work on a new project, I was dragged into the lives of these people I had made up but came to love, until they formed the centre of my world, and to my great pleasure, it soon became apparent that they would bring a lot of enjoyment to people almost everywhere.
Being caught up in a phenomenon is hard to describe. It was unbelievable at first, but rewarding too and a real sign that, just for once, we had got it right. As it happens, I have been lucky over the years, but when I die, I am fairly certain that Downton Abbey will be the marker of my passing. Nor do I resent this. Any more than, I am sure, Matthew Wiener would mind being remembered for Mad Men or Aaron Sorkin for The West Wing. I enjoyed the initial challenge of finding an audience for the show, and the renewed thrown gauntlet at the start of every season of proving we could keep up the standard we had set. I think we did, although it sounds vain to say it. Our audiences stayed loyal until the finish, and now we have the pleasure of giving them the chance of another visit to that wonderful house (for Highclere Castle is a wonderful house) and the fun of catching up with their favourite characters. Actually, there was something almost surreal, like a kind of time travel, as we gathered together at the read-through, and then reassembled in the great hall, the cast back in costume, the crew resuming their tasks. Now it is done and we are ready to show the film to the public in the hope of their approval.
This book will allow them to share the fun of making the movie, the different stages of development, the various departments involved. It is about our return to Downton, and I hope it will have a favoured place on the shelves of those who buy it, as a lasting memento of a show that found a way into their hearts.
Julian Fellowes
June 2019
The year is 1927. Downton Abbey, the seat of Lord Grantham, is cloaked in morning mist, just before the sun breaks through and rises steadily over the Yorkshire countryside.
Inside, the servants are up and ready for the day: Mr Barrow is in his butler’s livery, Mrs Patmore and Daisy are busy in the kitchen, Mrs Hughes attends to her paperwork. Upstairs, Lady Mary and Tom Branson are already in the dining room; Lord Grantham is making his way down. All is as it should be and has always been – a normal day on the Downton estate.
Yet for the previous few hours, a letter has been journeying towards the house. Beginning its passage in a gilded room, it is placed inside a leather satchel and carried away by a liveried official. Mailbags are loaded on to a night train, and as it thunders through the darkness, postal workers sort letters into pigeonholes. At dawn, a van winds its way through the waking Downton village until it stops at the post office. It’s a GPO motorcycle that drives up the gravelled approach to Downton Abbey and stops outside the servants’ entrance – a sign of the changing times. Andy the footman opens the back door and the postman holds up the letter.
The letter bears the crest of the royal coat of arms, its journey having begun at Buckingham Palace. It announces the impending arrival of King George and Queen Mary, who are to visit Downton Abbey as part of their tour of Yorkshire. Almost at once the familiar rhythm of the house is altered – the day, and the next few weeks, will be anything but normal.
DOWNTON REVISITED
GARETH NEAME
Producer
Over a decade ago, Gareth Neame had a seed of an idea. With over twenty-five years’ experience working in British drama, he probably had a great many ideas in his head. This particular one, however, would lead to the creation of one of the most successful television dramas ever made, capturing millions of fans across the world, in over 250 territories, earning critical acclaim and recognition including three Golden Globes, fifteen Emmys, a BAFTA Television Special Award and four Screen Actors Guild awards.
Gareth had for a long time thought that the setting of an English country estate could provide the perfect backdrop for a television series. Some years earlier, he had seen Robert Altman’s film Gosford Park and had been impressed by its compelling depiction of country-house life, both those working in the house and its guests. He discussed the idea with Julian Fellowes, who had won an Academy Award for his original screenplay for Gosford Park. Drilling into the concept further, Gareth and Julian agreed the television show should have an Edwardian setting, but with a pace of narrative and density of stories more familiar to contemporary dramas. Crucially, it should follow the lives of the family and their servants in equal measure.
Some days later, Julian emailed to Gareth his initial thoughts on the many characters who would come to inhabit their imagined estate. Above stairs, there was the Earl and his American wife; below, the butler and housekeeper. These characters almost leapt off the page, as if Fellowes had lived with them for many years. The world he created instantly came alive, and Downton Abbey was born.
The decision to make a Downton Abbey film was not quite so instantaneous, but gradually gained traction as the phenomenal success of the television series grew.
‘There was never an exact moment of “let’s make a Downton movie”,’ explains Gareth, ‘but we had been thinking about it at around the end of season four and by the time we were halfway through shooting the final season, Julian and I were already getting into the detail of what the film could be.
‘Some people felt we finished a little prematurely in season six and I think we could have gone on for another year. NBCUniversal, our parent company, were interested to se
e if a Downton movie could happen, and during the filming of the final season, Julian and I said we wanted to do a movie. I really felt I had a duty to the fans and if we hadn’t got it off the ground, I would have felt that we had failed them. I think the knowledge that we were developing a film has sustained many people for the past three years.’
One of the first people Gareth and Liz Trubridge recruited to the team was director Michael Engler, who they had worked with on a few episodes of the television series. As Liz says: ‘The joy of working with Michael is that he is so collaborative – you can question things with him and he seeks to know what you think – and he has the most infectious enthusiasm for the project. He also works incredibly hard and he’s so experienced that he knows exactly what he wants and if something on the day goes wrong he is very capable of adapting.’
Once the will was there to do a movie, the first key step was to establish the main premise of the storyline, to devise a plot that was very much Downton in feel but which would work on the big screen. ‘Julian came up with the idea of the royal visit,’ explains Gareth, ‘which appealed because it gave the characters this once-in-a-lifetime event, the “jewel in the crown” if you like. Downton often has a myriad of storylines but the royal visit provides a shared endeavour that all the characters are involved in. We see them on the back foot, usurped by people who think they are better than them, and we see our heroes fight back.’
With an agreed storyline for the film in place, Julian set to work on the script. Continuing the close working practice developed during the making of the television series, Julian provided the first draft of the script, which Gareth then went through, making notes. As always, these early stages of the script development were an intimate and very focused process, involving just Julian, Gareth and fellow producer Liz Trubridge, as they went over draft after draft of the script until they were happy with it.
A clear challenge for the creative team was to make the multiple storylines of the large ensemble cast of Downton Abbey suitable for a movie, which usually has just one or a handful of characters involved in one story. ‘We worked really hard to give each of them a story and Julian is brilliant at juggling a large number of characters, all of them strongly defined with their own narrative,’ explains Gareth. ‘The audience want to see their favourite character do something meaningful, plus I had to get all these actors to commit to the film, so they needed a reason to be there!’
When they were all satisfied with the script, the team then sent it to Focus Features, who were funding and distributing the film. Gareth’s role as producer is multi-layered and involves procuring finance for projects as well as running Carnival Films, collaborating on scripts and approving casting, editing and post-production. Once the script had the definite go-ahead from Focus, Carnival were then able to send it to the cast.
For a movie, Downton Abbey has an unusually large cast and while the original twenty actors were keen in principle, getting them all together in one place for filming proved a real challenge. None could be recast and all had busy schedules, meaning that there was little room for manoeuvre when dates for filming were finally agreed.
Along with securing the returning members of the cast, Gareth and his team also needed to find new cast members, some of whom were playing real people from the past. These included King George V and Queen Mary, along with their daughter, Princess Mary, and her husband, Lord Lascelles. The royal family had previously made an appearance in the final episode of season four, in which the Crawley family managed to stop a compromising love letter from the Prince of Wales to his mistress, Freda Dudley Ward, getting into the wrong hands. ‘It is fun to have the fictional characters of Downton merging with the real world, as we do in the movie,’ explains Gareth. ‘It is said that Princess Mary had an unhappy marriage but she ultimately saw it through, and we enjoyed playing with the concept that Branson gave her the advice she needed, that our imaginary creations helped make the marriage work.’
In finding new cast members, not only did the team want to find the right actors but, for those playing the royals, they were also keen to find people who could resemble them physically. Casting director Jill Trevellick oversaw the process and certainly Simon Jones and Geraldine James provided good likenesses of the King and the Queen, especially once costume and make-up had worked their magic.
Producer Liz Trubridge is not only involved with the script and development of the movie but also works closely with director Michael Engler and co-producer Mark Hubbard during the shoot. A typical day involves getting to the set very early in the morning to check that everything is okay. ‘We’ll talk through the day, what we need to achieve and where we’ll need to spend the most amount of time. The job of a producer is really an enabler, to make sure everyone can do the best work they’re capable of.’
While most of the new cast were approached by Jill through official channels, Academy-nominated Imelda Staunton, who is married to Jim Carter (Mr Carson), was by association already very much part of the family. Nonetheless, doing a film version of Downton enabled Jill to approach actors of the stature of Imelda, who plays the role of Lady Bagshaw to perfection.
While the team had for some years wanted David Haig to appear in Downton, the logistics never worked out. Fate, however, was to play its part when in 2017 Gareth bumped into David at a fish restaurant in Dorset. ‘I hadn’t worked with him for a very long time, but I mentioned that we had a good role in a film he might be interested in – two months later, he’s signed up for the role of Mr Wilson [the King’s Page of the Backstairs], and it’s fantastic to have him on board.’
The arrival of new cast members also brought in new love interests for the Downton characters, in the form of the King’s valet Mr Ellis and Mr Barrow; and Lady Bagshaw’s maid, Lucy, who catches the eye of Tom Branson. Romance has always been a key element in Downton Abbey, driven often by Mary and Edith’s pursuit of it. ‘In the final season, both of the sisters had found happiness,’ adds Gareth, ‘so Branson was the one central younger character who hadn’t found lasting love since losing his wife, so it was great for him to find it at last, or so we hope.’
In taking Downton Abbey to the big screen, the production team also had the task of giving the show more of a cinematic feel, which is no mean feat when the series already had the highest of production values on television. In recreating the style and etiquette of another age, the makers of Downton Abbey had always been detailed and unrelenting in their work, creating a show that was as much a visual treat as it was an entertaining drama. ‘We knew the film had to give the fans what they wanted, and it also had to be something more. The look of the film – set pieces, costumes, locations, cinematography – had to be another twenty-five to fifty per cent on top. We wanted it to feel like the show, but bigger and better, and more polished.’
To achieve this, Gareth and Liz brought in the key ‘architects’ of Downton – director Michael Engler, production designer Donal Woods and costume designer Anna Robbins – all of whom had worked on the television series. ‘We wanted continuity for the sets and costumes,’ explains Gareth, ‘but we also wanted to introduce some fresh components and for that reason chose to use a cinematographer who was entirely new to Downton, and so the very talented Ben Smithard joined the team as DOP [director of photography].’
While the film returns to Highclere, it also features some beautiful new locations as well as colourful set pieces involving hundreds of actors (and horses), all of which add further spectacle and scale to the film. These include the very grand Harewood House in Yorkshire, and the ballroom of Wentworth Woodhouse, which is captured in all its glory in one of the final scenes of the film.
Journeying from that first spark of an idea that was inspired by a movie, it is somehow fitting that the show is now to make its own transition to the big screen. It’s a thought that has, of course, occurred to Gareth as he’s looked back at the incredible journey that Downton Abbey has taken him on over the last few years. ‘It’s circular
in a way, and when we were shooting on set the other day, I did joke to the actors, “This is good, I think we should make a TV show out of it.”’
‘We wanted it to feel like the show, but bigger and better, and more polished.’
Gareth Neame, producer
‘Julian is brilliant at juggling a large number of characters, all of them strongly defined with their own narrative.’
Gareth Neame, producer
JULIAN FELLOWES
Writer and Producer
It is incredible to think that Downton Abbey and all the people who live and work in the great country estate of Lord and Lady Grantham are the imaginings of Julian Fellowes. Without him, Violet, the Dowager Countess, the Crawley sisters, Carson, Anna and Daisy would not exist – one can hardly believe it, as they seem so real. Their loves, lives, deep sorrows and great joys have all been conjured in his mind, before being brought to life by the actors who play them and the production team who build and shape their world.
Over the last few years, Julian’s splendid scripts have followed the lives of some thirty or so key characters over six seasons, with equal weight given to the family upstairs and those working for them, with storylines that twist and intertwine, enthralling millions of viewers in the process. His characters are well-defined and entirely credible, they make mistakes and sometimes reveal surprising sides to their personalities, and the lives of the servant household are just as complex and messy as that of the Crawleys.
The world in which Downton Abbey is set is also one that Fellowes knows something about, having witnessed the tail end of its heyday. As a boy, he wandered around the forlorn country estates of family friends or relatives, and glimpsed the last few debutantes dressed in white curtseying at Grosvenor House. It was of course a vanishing world, but he, like many of us, is fascinated by the rules and rituals that governed the lives of people in the Edwardian and interwar period, even while so much around them was changing.
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