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The strength of ‘Downton’ is all character,” Julian Fellowes says when asked why we love his phenomenally successful “Downton Abbey” quite so much. There is a perfect mix of aristocratic and servant intrigue, of big storytelling, love, gossip, and beautiful people in beautiful costume. “It looks like classic period drama, but the structure is more like The West Wing,” Fellowes continues. “Everything is very quick; we shot it with the speed of a soap.”
At Highclere Castle, near Newbury, west of London, the actors are filming season two (which premieres in the U.S. on PBS's Masterpiece on January 8, 2012) as Fellowes writes it. Dan Stevens, who plays Matthew Crawley, says he has had his “best and most intense week filming ever in the trenches, but I've no idea where the sсript is going.” Director James Strong explains, “There is no big star; it is an ensemble. ‘Downton’ 's about people and relationships and how we all struggle to find our place. It's an insight into a distant world, but it's close to us.”
The first season ended with Britain's declaration of war on Germany in August 1914. In the artillery fire of Part Two, World War I will change everything. Downton has become a convalescent home; women will discover a new role that will lead to suffrage in 1919; there will no longer be a future “in service.” What Lady Violet will make of all of this is one of the many delights to look forward to as Maggie Smith plays the Dowager Countess of Grantham as close to the cliff edge of caricature as no other living actress could. Fellowes admits to having written the part for Smith. “Maggie's performance is so layered; she gets the purpose of her character—the snobbery, the toughness, why people like her were put on this earth.” Lines as memorable as “What is a weekend?,” which Smith endows with every tone of light and shade and drollery in the vocal register, make ‘Downton’ 's first season a hard act to follow. Aware of his audience's expectation, Fellowes declares robustly, “Our agenda is to make the second series un-disappointing.”
On set the actors are universal in their praise of the sсript. Laura Carmichael (Lady Edith) says, “The characters were so clear from the first three scenes I read,” while Michelle Dockery (Lady Mary) attests, “Like with all good writing, the character grabs you immediately. Getting the part was wonderful—I knew we were onto something special.”
Fellowes conceived “Downton Abbey” as a three-series project—“three complete moods, all classes, town and country, each a distinct period, the final one the 1920s.” We are already on the edge of our seats awaiting the new season, and something tells me we are bound to be more than “un-disappointed.”
www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/features/2011/12/d...
@темы: фото, Dan Stevens, Jessica Brown-Findlay, Allen Leech, Michelle Dockery, Hugh Bonneville, Maggie Smith, 2 сезон