The One Character We Definitely Won't See in the New 'Downton Abbey' Movie
To the delight of Downton Abbey fans everywhere, the much beloved period drama is heading to the big screen.
But at least one beloved character won't be in the movie. Lily James, who played Lady Rose in the latter seasons of the series, shared with People that she will not appear in the film.
“My character Rose moved off to New York, so it would be farfetched to bring her back,” she said.
Despite James's burgeoning career, she said it wasn't a scheduling issue. “I would have loved to have come back for a scene, but for a movie, it can’t be like a Christmas special and it needs to be a focused storyline,” she said. “There was no space for Rose.”
But that doesn't mean she isn't excited to see the Crawley family's story continue on-screen. "I’m so excited for it—I’m going to be front row," she said.
Focus Features and Carnival Films has confirmed that "the original principal cast from the acclaimed television series have assembled to return for the feature which will begin production later this summer."
And rest assured, that means most if not all of your favorite characters will be returning, including Maggie Smith, who previously had her doubts about continuing the Crawley family's story.
In October of 2017, Maggie Smith said pretty definitively that she wouldn't appear in any Downton Abbey spin-offs. "I can't," she told Graham Norton. "What age would I be?
And in an interview with the British Film Institute, she suggested the movie could begin with Lady Grantham's funeral.
"I just think it's squeezing it dry, do you know what I mean?" she said. "I don't know what it could possibly be. It was so meandering, what would you [do]? Anyway that's not my problem."
But it seems she changed her mind. In the end, Smith reportedly missed the other actors, and got on board with the production.
"I suspect in a lot of ways, Maggie missed working with the other actors," executive producer Gareth Neame said, revealing that Smith was the final actor to sign on to the project. "When she was completely sure everyone was going to do it and it was happening, then she was on board."
According to producer Gareth Neame, Samantha Bond’s Lady Rosamund is also missing from the story as the team wanted the movie to "really focused on who were actually the characters at Downton."
"I phoned Samantha saying: 'I think there just isn't something in the script for you, but maybe another time,'" he told Good Housekeeping. "We loved all those recurring characters - all of Violet Grantham’s servants, we love those characters as well. But we had to be really focused on the core characters… film would have been four hours long," he said.
Downton Abbey hits theaters in the U.S. on September 20. Order Tickets Now
Watch the trailer here:
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