Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes says it’s ‘hard to believe’ Maggie Smith never watched the show

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 Abbeywas com­ing to an end. 

‘Down­ton Abbey’ cre­ator Julian Fel­lowes has said he finds it ‘hard to believe’ Mag­gie Smith nev­er watched the pro­gramme (Get­ty)

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.