Not that she has much spare time. She’s filming Anna Karenina “somewhere in Europe” at the moment then, on Monday, she’s back at Berkshire’s Highclere Castle, where Downton is set, to start work on the Christmas special.
She is endearingly grateful for the opportunity to work alongside a stellar cast, including Hugh Bonneville and Dame Maggie Smith, her on-screen grandmother.
“It’s a wonderful feeling to be part of such a phenomenon,” she says.
“I love playing Mary; she’s absolutely fascinating. She seems cynical and calculating, but in truth she’s indecisive and troubled, which makes her complicated and human and, as a result, hugely rewarding to play.”
If Lady Mary is a member of the idle rich, then the contrast with Michelle couldn’t be more pronounced.
The daughter of an Irish truck driver turned surveyor and a mother who delivers meals on wheels, she grew up in the unremarkable suburb of Chadwell Heath in Essex.
“Oh, no – Lady Mary would never have talked to me – I would have been in service,” she says.
“In fact, I asked my nan recently if any of our family had been in service and she reckons they were.”
www.mirror.co.uk/celebs/news/2011/10/15/downton...