The third season of “Downton Abbey” comes tonight to PBS amid a fanfare of publicity and a pitch of excitement in the U.S. unusual for public television British drama.As if to cater to this fervent audience, “Downton” gets further Americanized with the arrival of Shirley McLaine as Lady Grantham’s visiting mother. Though she’s not in the season long, she provides an excellent foil for one of the show’s sharpest weapons — Maggie Smith’s brusque Dowager Countess of Grantham.
For McGovern, looking as regal in a recent promotional stop at the British Embassy in Washington, it doesn’t mean the show is becoming more Americanized.
“But you do get that clash of cultures represented by those two great survivors of those places.”
Having MacLaine around, she said, was a treat. “It was marvelous to have a fellow American on the set. I understand where she’s coming from. It’s always comforting and she’s a great actress so what a pleasure.”
Having MacLaine around, she said, was a treat. “It was marvelous to have a fellow American on the set. I understand where she’s coming from. It’s always comforting and she’s a great actress so what a pleasure.”
Not that it had been difficult to be the only American on the stiffly British set previous to this.
“I don’t think it was difficult per se for that reason. I mean, when I went for my American accent lesson with my British accent coach I wasn’t sure.”
“I don’t think it was difficult per se for that reason. I mean, when I went for my American accent lesson with my British accent coach I wasn’t sure.”
Wait, the American actress had to take American accent lessons with a British coach?
“That’s hilarious,” says Hugh Bonneville, who plays her husband and head of household in the series, Lord Grantham. “ I didn’t know that.”
McGovern hadn’t exactly lost her American accent while living in the U.K. — “not that knew.”
And her accent, she added, “was a hell of a lot better than her’s.”
And her accent, she added, “was a hell of a lot better than her’s.”
The incident was the only time in the “Downton” experience, she said, “I thought, hmm…”
“Was that more to do with trying to find a period accent?” Bonneville asked her.
“I don’t really know,” McGovern said. “I think that just everybody was trying to cover all the bases. There’s nothing wrong with that.
“Basically my feeling is: it’s an absolute dream come true for me to work with the caliber of actors that I’ve been working with on this show.”
The fact that she even landed the part on “Downton,” which has become a sensation in scores of country worldwide, was something she didn’t think was possible as she turned 50.
“I had gotten to the stage where I didn’t think that was going to be possible for me in my life,” she said.
After landing her first role in the Oscar winning best picture “Ordinary People,” she excelled in period pieces from her Oscar nominated role in “Ragtime” to her part opposite Robert De Niro in “Sergio Leone’s “Once Upon a Time in America.”
Moving to London folowint her 1992 marriage to director Simon Curtis has meant she had worked largely on the stage there.
“I’d had a really great beginning to my career and really and truly thought that was going to be it for me,” she said, looking around the opulence of the British Embassy, a good substitute for the Highclere Castle that’s Downton’s setting. “To find myself with Hugh, Maggie, and the young kids who are brilliant, I still can’t believe it.”
“Downton Abbey” continues on “Masterpiece Classic” Sundays on PBS through Feb. 17.