US actress Elizabeth McGovern 'over' Downton Abbey and 'ready to move on'

US actress Elizabeth McGovern has said she is “over” Downton Abbey and is “ready to move on”.

The Yorkshire-set series about the life of the landed gentry and their servants is to end with a film titled Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale, which will be released in September.

McGovern, 64, plays Cora Crawley, who is married to Hugh Bonneville’s Robert Crawley, the Earl of Grantham, who holds the title to the Downton Abbey estate.

Responding to reports creator Lord Julian Fellowes said “never say never” when asked if this really was the last film, McGovern told British magazine Tatler: “As far as I’m concerned it’s done. I loved making this film, but I’m now over it. I’m ready to move on.”

Downton Abbey started as a TV series, which first aired on ITV in 2010, and ran for six series before the creation of films Downton Abbey (2019) and Downton Abbey: A New Era (2022).

Elizabeth McGovern for Tatler (Victor Demarchelier/PA) PA Media

The third film will be the first without veteran actress Dame Maggie Smith, who played Violet Crawley and who died in September 2024 aged 89.

McGovern said: “Everybody definitely had mixed feelings about doing Downton again, especially without Maggie.”

Asked what it was like to work with her, McGovern added: “Literally everything you could possibly imagine. Absolutely wonderful, hell on earth.

“But it all added up to being so worth it. Maybe the audience will see it differently, but to us, during filming she was still there, and all she represented.

“I didn’t expect that, and I was so proud.”

Speaking about the appeal of the show, she added: “It’s not just for the era it depicts, but for the time they first saw it. It was a much simpler world then, when we all sat down on a Sunday night to watch together and everybody would talk about it the next day.

“That just doesn’t happen any more. And we definitely all need something like this now, when reading the papers is so darn depressing and scary, so I’m proud we can offer up this thing.”

McGovern’s husband Simon Curtis returns to direct the film, having directed A New Era.

Speaking about his involvement, she said: “Simon wasn’t attached at first and when he came on board it really helped, because getting the cast together was like herding cats. Simon had the status to make everyone feel reassured.

“It sounds like I’m just promoting him because he’s my husband, but he’d lived with the series for so long and worked with most of the actors before, so he was perfect for the job.”

The programme has won a number of awards, including 15 Emmys, with Dame Maggie winning three of them for outstanding supporting actress in a drama series.

Released in 2019, the first film in the trilogy depicted a royal visit to the Crawley family and Downton staff, while the second film saw them travel to France after Violet inherited a villa.

Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale will be released in cinemas on September 12.

Read the full feature in the October issue of Tatler available via digital download and on newsstands from Thursday September 4.