The Grand Finale’ director teases Lady Mary’s divorce

Downton Abbey has said many goodbyes over the years, but it’s time, at last, for the grand finale.

Since its premiere in 2010, Downton Abbey has bid audiences adieu — first, with its television finale after six seasons; then, over the course of two films, any one of which could have been a satisfactory conclusion for this cadre of characters.

But on Sept. 12, fans will finally have the chance to say goodbye once and for all when Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale hits theaters. Simon Curtis, who is married to one of the series’ stars, Elizabeth McGovern, returns to the director’s chair following his stint helming 2022’s Downton Abbey: A New Era. Though this is only his second time directing within the world Julian Fellowes created, he’s lived with it for the last 15 years courtesy of McGovern, who portrays matriarch Cora Crawley.

“I was always pretty familiar with the world,” Curtis tells Entertainment Weekly. “But the thing that really excited me and moved me was that this was the farewell to this beloved ensemble of actors and characters. So, I really wanted to lean into that to give the audience the moving farewell I thought they deserved.”

The film picks up only seven months after the conclusion of Downton Abbey: A New Era, taking audiences into a new decade and a world without the indomitable presence of the Dowager Countess, Violet Crawley. (The character has died, as has the woman who so memorably played her, Maggie Smith.)

“If you talk to hair and makeup, and costume, they take that seven months very seriously indeed,” Curtis quips, noting that despite the relatively brief time gap, The Grand Finale makes a point of leaning into the changing mores and styles of the 1930s.

However, the biggest change comes in Lady Mary’s marital status. As shown in the film’s trailer, Mary (Michelle Dockery) is on her way to becoming the source of scandal once more, courtesy of her divorce from Henry Talbot (Matthew Goode).

Though Henry marked Mary’s “happy ending” on the series, Goode’s absence from the films (sans a brief appearance in the first film) propelled the storytelling to this point. Indeed, in A New Era, Lady Mary even enjoyed a harmless flirtation with film director Jack Barber (Hugh Dancy).

“The marriage was in trouble,” says Curtis. ” They were spending too much time apart. The drama of this film is, it’s moved into the next and final stage.”

Divorce, of course, during that time was “infinitely more dramatic and shocking than it is today,” Curtis adds. “We worked very hard to teach our audience just how significant it would be for a lady from a top English family to get a divorce, because that is somewhat surprising to a modern audience. But then it was a very, very big deal.”

Still, Lady Mary is never one to want for suitors — might she find one in the cast’s newest addition, Gus Sambrook, as played by Alessandro Nivola?

“There’s definitely that potential,” teases Curtis. “He is a bit of a mystery man. He comes with Harold to England, and no one is expecting him to be there. There’s a lot of us watching the characters trying to discover quite what he’s about.”

The film is also a return for Paul Giamatti, who plays Cora’s brother Harold. Harold was previously seen only in the 2013 Christmas Special, but Curtis was eager to mine the character for more.

“When he and his mother, played by Shirley MacLaine, visited in the series, I didn’t feel there was enough brother and sister reunion between Cora and Harold,” he says. “I was very pleased to see that we had the scenes in this film to give them their due, because that is a huge thing. There were no phones, no Zooms, no emails. It took weeks to get across the Atlantic. It would’ve been a very, very big deal living a life away from your American family. So, I’m really pleased that we lean into that and give the brother and sister a real relationship.”

Still, it’s not purely a sibling reunion or a handsome stranger that Harold brings in his wake. “The Granthams really hope that Harold is going to be their savior, and it doesn’t quite work out like that,” hints Curtis.

Though A New Era traveled to France, The Grand Finale makes beautiful use of the many British locations beyond its home base of Downton Abbey (as played by Highclere Castle since 2010). The entire first act occurs in London, which Curtis quips is their “Sex and the City sequence.”

“We always start with the shot of the big house,” Curtis notes. “We thought it’d be interesting and different to have the first act of the film in the famous London season, and we tried to lean into that. [The characters] were loving being in the big city.”

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The film will also take audiences to a day at the races at the iconic Royal Ascot (though they had to film in an alternate location due to Ascot’s increased modernity). “That is a huge set piece,” Curtis promises. “We have hundreds of extras in costume and real jockeys and real horses. It took a lot of planning.”

Still, while there is lots of new, Curtis acknowledges that at this point, Downton is a bit of a nostalgia hit for audiences — and he wants to deliver on that while giving the characters a hearty sendoff.

“I’ve lived with Downton Abbey for 15 years, and there’s something so powerful and poignant about saying goodbye to these characters who feel like a family to the whole world,” he reflects. “There’s a nostalgia, not only for the time in which it was set, but for when people on both sides of the Atlantic first saw Downton Abbey.“