Downton not done yet, but will need a ‘natural end’

Downton Abbey won’t go on forever, but while a 5th season has been approved by ITV, just when it will end is still anybody’s guess.

“We don’t want to be that show that’s ‘still on,'” says actor Allen Leech (‘Tom Branson’).

“Maggie Smith is very funny. She says ‘I can’t go on much longer. My character is about 150!’

“I do believe the show won’t go on forever. I think there will be a natural end and I don’t know when that will be. I’d like to finish out Tom’s story and I don’t think it’s been done yet. I wouldn’t want him to be there turning up and facilitating the storylines.”

Pivotal to it all is the available time of creator Julian Fellowes, who also serves as a Conservative member of the House of Lords, and has also been commissioned to pen American drama The Gilded Age for NBC Universal.

Allen Leech, who joined in a guest role as a family chauffer, admits he never expected to become part of the Crawley family in the first place. But Fellowes turned it into a major arc when Sybil Crawley (Jessica Brown Findlay) married the working class character.

“I’ve been very lucky with the character arc I’ve had with Branson. I was only hired for 3 episodes at the start. That was it,” he says.

“Julian said ‘I kind of like the storyline, do you want to come back and do the second series?’ And at that point it had just started to air in the States. It was a crazy time because we were only just realising that the world had fallen in love with the show.

“Hugh Bonneville (Earl of Grantham) would come in and say ‘It’s just started in Sweden, and they’re loving it in Brazil.’ Spain went mad for the first couple of series.”

But when Sybil was killed off in a major storyline, Leech admits he thought he would be next.

“I said to Jess, ‘This is probably going to be the end of me, here.’ But Julian said it was much more interesting to keep me in the show,” he recalls.

“But you don’t know until you get the script. The way he played it was very clever in that Tom couldn’t go home. Which he’d set up earlier in the season, given that he had to run back to Downton for security, after he got in trouble with the Irish police.”

Tom Branson was later made the estate manager, solidifying him into the house and securing his future.

Leech knows too well the erratic nature of acting employ. He has appeared in The Tudors and Rome, and loves theatre work. But Downton is his highest profile series so far.

“I had my first professional gig at 16 with The Gate theatre in Dublin. I said ‘I will paint sets, I will do anything. If you have any parts for my age I will come and audition,'” he says.

“To get immersed with something so creative at that age was a buzz.

“Then Frances McDormand came to play Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire I was the Young Gentleman Caller. Crazy! I didn’t really know who she was, although I had seen Fargo which was a good movie.

“And her husband was with her, a Coen Brother. I thought ‘Oh is he?’ I was a kid! But looking back now it was a good place to start.

“But I had dry period in London when I couldn’t get arrested for work. Then I went home and did a part for no money in The Cube (theatre) which was a tiny space. I went home and said, ‘This is why I am an actor.’ I’d completely connected with performing again.”‘

This season in Downton Abbey Tom becomes a confidant to the grieving Mary Crawley (Michelle Dockery), reeling from the death of her husband Matthew Crawley (Dan Stevens).

“He’s the only one who genuinely knows what she’s thinking, because he’s gone through exactly the same,” says Leech.

“But Mary wasn’t the biggest fan of Branson when he arrived. He’s the one who took her sister away.

“At the end of the series Branson had a job, but he has no status within the family or this house. So he’s very lost because he’s sitting at the table of the family of his dead wife. So where does he really belong and what does he want to do?

“So it’s a real period of transition, trying to find exactly who he is. All his political beliefs have gone out the window because he has just been dealing with the death of his wife and all these circumstances that have led him to being so trapped. So you’re really dealing with genuine feelings of isolation and claustrophobia in relation to this house.”

So popular is the show that cast have had to become expert at keeping secrets.

“It’s hard but you learn to be very aware. Also wherever you go talking about the show, a lot of them are (up to different episodes). Germany is at Season 2. So when you do press junkets and they ask ‘What happens in S2’ I’m like “Ummmmmm…..” he admits.

Media are also hungry for news on scripts, but not even the cast enjoy full disclosure of where the storylines are going.

“Paps hide in Highclere Castle in camouflage with long lenses to try and get a photo of Shirley Maclaine or Paul Giamatti. I suppose they’re worth cash.

“You normally get 5 eps of 8, so you know where it’s going to be headed in terms of a relationship arc,” he explains.

“But the actual workings of how you’re going to get there, no. And you don’t know how it’s going to end.

“So you do that thing. You check to see if you’re still alive and then go back and read it! You never know with Downton!”

Australian fans have also been hungry for new episodes, especially given the series ended in November. Production ended in August and began airing about 4 weeks later in the UK.

“In the States they sit on it until January, and a couple of us were like, ‘Why wouldn’t you just put it on at the same time?’ But I think it sits quite nicely into the schedule in the States,” says Leech.

“You can buy the DVD the day after the series ends.”

Highclere Castle has also become world famous thanks to the show’s global popularity. Leech explains that the location is about a 1:40 hr drive from London, and for the most part, what you see is what you get.

“They used to get 3,000 visitors a month and now it’s 30,000. It’s insane. There are coach tours from Ireland that drive over to see it,” he says.

“It’s in the centre of an estate and there’s nothing but trees around it. So as you see it, is how it is.

“Around the back there is an annexe that was put on in the 50s but you would never see that.

“But there are no kitchens in Highclere. When you turn and go down the stairs, there’s nothing down there. So you stop and then sometimes we pick up that scene 4 weeks later (in studio).”

While being in a hit series means regular work, there’s also the price of fame. Leech says most fans are complimentary and polite -assuming they recognise him.

“There are second glances because you’re out of costume and you look different. When the show is on there is a lot of awareness,” he notes.

“But it’s a bit of an MTV generation. The minute it’s not on TV it kind of goes out of their minds a bit, in relation to recognising me.

“I still ride the Tube in London and people are always very nice, sometimes they take photos without asking which is a bit weird.

“Some people know me as Allen but a lot of them say ‘You play Tom Branson.’”

Downton Abbey returns 8:40pm Sunday on Seven.