Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes has said he struggles to believe Dame Maggie Smith never watched the ITV period drama despite her claims.
The celebrated actor, who died in September2024 aged 89, played Violet Crawley, Dowager Countess of Grantham, from the show’s launch in 2010 – but publicly declared she’d never seen an episode.
Fellowes, 76, said that, although Smith “always maintained” she hadn’t tuned in to the show, he found her claims “slightly hard to believe” because she was “a perfectionist” and would want to check her scenes.
Smith, who’s known for her roles in the Harry Potter franchise and her Oscar-winning turn in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, “always took her performances tremendously seriously,” Fellowes told The Times.
When asked whether Smith would have enjoyed the series’s forthcoming feature-length conclusion, The Grand Finale, Fellowes replied: “I think she’d like it in as much as she would watch it.”
Smith played Violet in the series from 2010 to 2015, and her character died at the end of the 2022 film Downton Abbey: A New Era.
Following Smith’s own death in September 2024, a clip resurfaced of the actor on The Graham Norton Show in 2015 discussing her relief that her time on Downton Abbey was coming to an end.
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The actor said her character “must have been 110, so I couldn't go on and on”. She added: “I couldn’t! It just didn't make sense.”
Smith then admitted she’d never watched the programme despite starring in it, statingL “I’ve got the box set so I can watch it.”
With a career spanning 70 years, Smith is remembered for her versatile repertoire ranging from Shakespeare to the Harry Potter franchise.
She was nominated for six Oscars, winning Best Actress in 1970 for her title role in The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie, and a Supporting Actress gong in 1979 for comedy California Suite.
Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale will follow the 7th Earl of Grantham, Robert Crawley (Hugh Bonneville) as he plans to pass down his estate to his daughter, Lady Mary (Michelle Dockery).
However, news of Mary’s divorce from Matthew Goode’s Henry Talbot puts her impending stewardship in jeopardy as the family’s financial troubles could see them sell and leave the abbey for good.
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