Interview: DOWNTON ABBEY'S Shirley Maclaine, Phyllis Logan

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 Phyllis Logan and Shirley MacLaine.

AN INTERVIEW WITH PHYLLIS LOGAN

So how much of a chore is it for Phyllis Logan, aka Mrs Hughes, to come to work on Downton Abbey?

“Excuse me,” she says, pointing out of her trailer’s open door at the view over Highclere Castle’s wild flower meadows. “Look at that. I’ve got the room with a view. What’s not to like? Every time I come up here it is still breathtaking, beautiful and wonderful.”

The same could not be said for her character Mrs Hughes, the head housekeeper.

“She has some issues of her own to be dealing with at the start of this series,” says Logan. “They do get resolved but it is a bit challenging and I think it does give her a different sort of perspective on things - on life.”

It leads to an unlikely alliance with Mrs Patmore. “They become a little more of a partnership let’s say. There’s always been a little bit of tension between them because of the store cupboard key business in series one. But in these circumstances that all seems to go by the board when they realise that they could actually be succour for each other in certain circumstances. So yes, that’s a nice development too.”

As head housekeeper, Mrs Hughes and Mr Carson, the Butler, have a relationship founded on mutual respect and decorum. But Mrs Hughes may turn out to be a little more progressive than her counterpart.

“They still have that nice warmth and respect between them but he still is very much Mr Play-it-by-the- book. Whereas Mrs Hughes is more progressive, in as much as a head housekeeper ever can be. I mean she is still in her corset but you know, apart from that, I think she is a little more of a lefty than he would ever consider right or proper.”

And her path through the third series is to become even more forward thinking.

“As we go on through the series, she looks out for someone who you wouldn’t think she would be supportive of in any way - she actually shows some kindness and support for this unlikely person. There’s a part of her that doesn’t accept fools gladly but I think she realises that we all have our foibles - and perhaps she’s seen more of life than people might think.”

Logan says it’s been refreshing to have a storyline that takes her character out of the house for a change.

“Rather than just wandering about looking vicious with a set of keys jangling off my hip! Yes, it is nice to give another dimension to it.”