Add Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale to your watchlist
Julian Fellowes and I are deep in discussion on the plight of nepo babies, his swift dismissal of various under-skilled celebrity offspring – “mentioning no names” – tempered by compassion. “It’s very difficult… Often, children of geniuses, particularly in Hollywood, are perfectly ordinary people and they don’t have special gifts for these things. For every Jane Fonda, there are about 56,000 others who try to show they’ve got the same talent as their parents and they just haven’t.”
Fellowes is just as delightful on how British and American fortunes were made in the 19th and early 20th centuries, real-life tales of which he has, so far, syphoned into Oscar-winning screenplay Gosford Park, big-budget sweeping TV saga The Gilded Age and, of course, TV juggernaut and now film trilogy, Downton Abbey.
“Americans made vast fortunes, but they wanted it quicker,” he says. “They didn’t want to have to wait five generations before they could have tea with someone. So they made a new society that was a mixture of people from successful families, and other people who had made all their money in three months. The thing is, I think Europeans still have a greater sense of their own history. They carry it within them, whereas Americans tend to look to the future – what’s the next big thing?”
Our first conversation takes place in a Richmond office block, turned over to catering for the hundreds of crew and cast filming Downton Abbey’s last instalment, The Grand Finale. People flit around in the glittering garb of 1930, looking a bit overdressed for a weekday afternoon in south-west London. But, at the centre of it all, Julian Fellowes looks entirely relaxed – unsurprisingly, for it is a world of his making.
It is a world, however, of two very distinct halves. Later on, when we meet again on Zoom, I ask if he admires this bygone social system: “Well, I think we live in a very black-and-white era, where everything is either good or bad. In fact, all systems that last any length of time have some strengths and some weaknesses, and eventually they become wrong for the time that they move into.”
Fellowes remembers growing up in the 1960s and visiting houses where maids and butlers were still employed. “I am a traditionalist by nature, and yet even I could feel the sun was setting on that particular way of life. There were aspects of it where everyone sort of knew what was what, with formalities and patterns, rather than the sort of chaotic, catch-me-if-you-can society that came after. But it wasn’t impossible for me to see that this was nearly over, that this just wasn’t how people wanted to be.”
One thing that hasn’t changed is Britain’s complicated relationship with figures of celebrity, wealth and status. It is something that clearly bemuses Fellowes, who has enjoyed success on both sides of the Atlantic. “Britain has this curious double standard of hating the rich and hating anyone who has been very successful, and yet wanting it. I don’t get it. It seems to me ungenerous not to admire people who have done very well.”
Easy to say, as a man who was raised the son of a diplomat, and entered the House of Lords himself in 2011? He demurs. “Even when I was a struggling actor – which I can tell you is not the easiest of existences – if I met someone who’d had success and become a movie star, I’d think, ‘Good luck to them’.”
With an Oscar and slate of acting roles to his name, Fellowes was already – by most standards – highly successful when he began writing Downton Abbey in 2009. What did it bring him? “It was my first opportunity to create my own world, to invent a whole thing that went on and on. I could explore vicissitudes of people’s personalities in a way that if you just write a show or a film, you can’t.
“Continuing to explore people and give them different sides and different elements is something you only experience in writing a series, and when you’re writing to performances that you’ve already seen. When you think of somebody like Thomas, his evolution was very moving.”
Thomas, played by Rob James-Collier, was initially the sullen and quite spiteful servant, secretly gay, who found a whole new lease of life in the employment (and presumably embrace) of a visiting actor, played by Dominic West. If there were to be any spin-off stories for characters from Downton Abbey, would Thomas be in the frame?
“I think you could make a case for many of them,” smiles Fellowes. “Thomas was an interesting character for two reasons. One, it was very difficult to be gay when we started, which was 1912, and it was beginning to be easier by the time we finish in 1930, although still a long way to go. The other thing is, I like to write characters where the audience changes their mind about them and I hope they did with Thomas. You started feeling he was rather waspish and malicious, then you gradually saw his life had been very hard. And you started to see his point of view.”
Fellowes pauses. “But I think that, on the whole, I’ve probably said most of what I’ve got to say. I don’t know…
“Every time I say ‘never’ in this business, I find six months later, I’m doing exactly what I said I’d never do.”
Hence then, the article about a fond farewell was published today ( ) and is available on Radio Times ( Middle East ) The editorial team at PressBee has edited and verified it, and it may have been modified, fully republished, or quoted. You can read and follow the updates of this news or article from its original source.
Read More Details
Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( A fond farewell )
Also on site :
- 1992 No. 1 Hit Ranked Among ‘Greatest Country Songs of All Time’ Became a Timeless Heartbreak Classic, but Never Won an Award
- 1975 Hit Comedy Film, Famously Ending After Funding Crash, Ranked No. 1 ‘Most Rewatchable Movie of All Time’
- Luis Gil Shut Down With Shoulder Inflammation