Elizabeth McGovern says Maggie Smith’s absence from new Downton Abbey ‘sort of freed up the rest of the narrative’

Elizabeth McGovern doesn’t feel like Maggie Smith is missing from the new Downton Abbey installment.

The Ordinary People actress, who played Cora Crawley on the hit English drama, believes that her late costar’s presence “permeates” the forthcoming movie Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale despite her death in September 2024.

“She’s still very much in the atmosphere,” McGovern said of Smith, who played her mother-in-law, the Dowager Countess Violet Crawley, during an interview with The Guardian. “I don’t feel there’s a big hole. In fact, in some ways, it sort of freed up the rest of the narrative to have a flow, because it’s not stopping for her moments.”

Smith’s character died near the conclusion of the franchise’s previous installment, 2022’s Downton Abbey: A New Era, which means The Grand Finale wasn’t adversely affected by Smith’s passing.

“Everything she represents is there,” McGovern said of Smith. “She’s in every room, in every interaction, so it’s not like she’s not there. It’s a weird thing.”

McGovern also said that it has sometimes been challenging to put herself in the shoes of a character living in the early 20th century. “I think as a contemporary woman, it is hard to feel the straitjacket of that period.” she said. “I wish at times she could have had more interesting stories.”

However, she also noted that her character probably couldn’t have realistically enjoyed  “any more political or social power, because it just wouldn’t be accurate to the time.”

Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale will see almost all of the original series’ cast return to their roles, including Hugh Bonneville, Michelle Dockery, Laura Carmichael, Jim Carter, Phyllis Logan, and Robert James-Collier. Also returning: Paul Giamatti, who played Cora’s brother, Harold Levinson, on the original series.

“I’m really surprised that I returned at all,” Giamatti told Entertainment Weekly of his role in March. “I had a very kind of marginal character, and somebody thought it was a good idea to make me very important in this [movie].”

Giamatti highlighted his character’s essential role in the third (and supposedly final) Downton movie. “I was like, wow, this is random, I have a lot to do with the end of this whole series,” the actor said. “I do something of real significance — good or bad, I’m not going to say! But, I do something that makes a big difference to how everything ends.”

Downton executive producer Gareth Neame previously said that Smith’s death has enhanced the strong emotions of the upcoming film. “The fact that Dame Maggie herself has now passed away since that time, I do think, has given a real added poignancy to a story that we would have planned anyway,” he told TVLine. “The loss of the Dowager, it now feels far more significant that you see actors playing characters mourning the family matriarch. But I also see actors mourning…and it feels more genuine and more meaningful.”