Interview: DOWNTON ABBEY'S Elizabeth McGovern and Sophie McShera

The Great War is over and a long-awaited engagement is on, but all is not tranquil at DOWNTON ABBEY as wrenching social changes, romantic intrigues, and personal crises grip the majestic English country estate for a third thrilling season.

With the return of its all-star cast plus guest star Academy Award®-winner Shirley MacLaine, DOWNTON ABBEY, Season 3 airs over seven Sundays on PBS beginning on January 6, 2013. BWW brings you a series of interviews with the award-winning cast of this popular PBS series. Next up, actors Elizabeth McGovern and Sophie McShera. 

AN INTERVIEW WITH Elizabeth McGovern

Elizabeth McGovern says she is more comfortable than she’s ever been for this third series of Downton Abbey. Quite literally, in fact:

“I'm happy to say that as the times have marched on the outfits have become more liberated - so they're a lot, lot less uncomfortable this year. The corsets are a lot more flexible. Not nearly as bad!”

It’s not just the clothing that is becoming more liberated as we rejoin Cora at the beginning of the new series. It’s the attitudes as well.

“Basically, the forward thrust of the series as it begins is that the world is changing. You see all of the characters either adjusting to it or not adjusting to it in their different ways. It’s clear that Cora is having an easier time with the new ways of things. She’s flexible about adjusting to the new way in which life is going. When you meet her mother [Martha Levinson, played by Shirley MacLaine] you see why – Cora’s already made this enormous adjustment from the culture where she’s come from. So she can more easily adapt to ways of life that aren’t long established by tradition.”

What was it like having a screen legend like Shirley MacLaine on the Downton Abbey set?

“I think it gave everyone a boost of energy. She has an idiosyncratic way of going about everything, which was really refreshing. She’s a great storyteller, very funny, full of life and full of great observations.”

McGovern, of course, is American by birth, which means that she has a distinctive take on her countrymen’s reaction to Downton Abbey

“It’s always shocking to me - they're effusive in their love for it, at least the last couple of times I’ve been. They just can’t get enough of it.”

She says that only once in her career has she has seen a comparable reaction.

“Very early on I did a movie called Ordinary People that I felt had a very emotive impact in a similar way. That impact didn’t go on for so long - obviously because it wasn't a series. But it evoked a similar response.”

And it’s the kind of response an actor always hopes for.

“You want people to notice and respond to what you are conveying and I do have that feeling with Downton. People pick up on tiny little details and nuances in the story and talk to each other about them. That is incredibly gratifying.”

She says that fans like Cora for her steadfastness.