Super Model Scouts: July 2011

Sunday, July 31, 2011

Press tour for Downton Abbey's 2nd season

For those looking for more news regarding Downton Abbey's upcoming second season, here are a selection of tidbits from yesterday's press tour!

“People will live. People will die. Marriages will be made.

Babies will be born. I can’t possibly tell you
who any of these things will happen to.”

~ Rebecca Eaton, PBS Masterpiece Executive Producer [THR]

What we know...
* Downton Abbey will air in a total of 9 episodes: beginning in September 2011 with 8 episodes on ITV in UK, followed by a break with the 9th episode airing around Christmas time
* PBS Masterpiece will air the series in its entirety in January 2012 in 7 episodes, the Christmas episode included. [Keep in mind PBS does not have commercials and formats it differently with some episodes 90 minutes vs. 60 minutes across the pond.]
* Two cast members are not returning: We'll miss Gwen (Rose Leslie) but will have to be content with imagining her enjoying her new post as a secretary, the job she longed to pursue. "Maybe we'll bring her back at some point in a secretarial role, as a professional woman," Gareth Neame says. The other "character" not returning is the original dog that was Lord Grantham's 'Pharaoh'. Seems that he caused problems for the real dogs at Highclere Castle so 'he' has been replaced with a 'she' who will be named 'Isis'.

"This time around, we won't even lose 20 minutes of footage"... "The US version of "Downton's" [season] 2 will feature every minute, every frame, of what airs in the UK". The British episodes 1 and 2 will be episode 1 for us [in the U.S.], and we're combining near the end as well but every frame that they see, you'll see", says Executive Producer Rebecca Eaton. [The Fien print, IMDb Twitter, aoltv]

From Deadline:
When questioned about two hours being cut from the PBS edit of Downton Abbey, Rebecca Eaton replied,
"I'm glad you brought this up. This was a story in the Daily Mail. Do I have to say anything more? And they got it wrong and they made a big deal out of it, that we'd taken two hours out. It wasn't true. Our version was overall 20 or 25 minutes shorter and had to do with (advertising) and the need for different formatting. We didn't chop it up to make it more palatable to the dummies in the American audience -- as it was implied." Eaton was quick to add, "By the way, that reporter's name was Christopher Hastings."

[As the Dowager Countess would say, "Put that in your pipe and smoke it!]

From Star News:
Everyone has accepted that Matthew is going to inherit the place. “That story was really dealt with in the first series,” [producer Gareth] Neame said. “He is the heir. They’ve all welcomed him. They’re all disappointed that Mary made the wrong call and in the end she hedged her bets so she didn’t marry him.”

And don’t be misled by his eagerness to flee Downton and return to a life of lawyering in the finale. “He’s gone,” Neame said. “(But) the fact that he’s left Downton doesn’t mean he’s not still the heir. He’s just saying ‘I’m going to hang around with you people.’ ”

And as Matthew heads to battle, the stakes raise beyond the fate of a piece of land. “The war throws everything into turmoil all over again,” Stevens said.

The war will give Dan Stevens some scenes with actor Rob James-Collier, who plays Thomas, the trouble-making gay footman who we last saw joining up with the medical corps to avoid enlisting. Stevens said Thomas was one of the characters he wished Matthew spent more time with the first time around.

“I didn’t really have a great deal to do with (him) in the first series,” he said. But this season, “I’m a soldier in the army and we have an encounter at the front. So I have a couple of scenes with him, which is nice. We get to play with different characters a bit (this season).”

Siobhan Finneran's transformation into O'Brien (seasons 1 and 2)

From The Fien Print
Has O'Brien changed in Series Two? "She's carrying quite a lot of guilt with her about what she did. But she doesn't turn into Mother Theresa, you'll be pleased to know," Siobhan Finneran says, referencing the unfortunate incident involving the soap.

Dan Stevens and Michelle Dockery are asked about the restrictions, emotionally, of playing characters from that period. "Very often the emotional intention of the scene runs directly parallel to the verbal intentions," Stevens says, calling it one of the best things of doing costume dramas. "It's interesting to play those scenes where the emotions and true feelings are repressed," Dockery says. "It's very English," adds Stevens. Dockery says that today everything is more "exposed." Neame adds that in almost every single scene, there's a subtext and a gap between what's said and what's intended.

From Radio Times
A subtler theme is also set to emerge: the social change wrought by the First World War, as class boundaries become less rigid. Later in the run, Branson the Irish chauffeur (Allen Leech) will even bring Sunday-night ITV viewers a taste of the Easter Rising.

Some things never change. Maggie Smith still provokes a laugh out loud with everything she says as the dowager countess. Penelope Wilton still sparkles as the stubborn Isobel Crawley. As Lord Grantham, Hugh Bonneville still hears bad news while putting on or removing a jacket, before reporting the calamity to Lady Grantham (Elizabeth McGovern) later on, in pyjamas. Episode one also features the series' best ever use of implausible eaves-dropping.

From aoltv:
"When the show returns, Matthew and Lady Mary haven't seen each other for two years."

"Gareth Neame put it very well the other day -- he said, 'The tragedy is no longer the missing snuffbox -- it's a missing arm or leg or life,'" McGovern said.

Cora, who's usually calm and collected, is unsettled when the show returns, McGovern said. "It takes her a while to acclimate herself, and I think she's very derailed by the situation," McGovern said. "In the first couple of episodes, she's just lost."

Photo credits:
Rahoul Ghose/PBS
Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images North America

Interview with Laura Carmichael for Downton Abbey

Laura Carmichael plays Lady Edith Crawley, the daughter of Robert and Cora, who is always feuding with her sister Mary. In the second series, Edith throws itself into the war effort by helping out on a local farm and at Downton Abbey when it is turned into a convalescent home.

Laura starts by sharing an anecdote from the scene she has just completed - driving a vintage car through the village of Bampton. So how was it? “I think my heart rate is starting to go back to normal,” she laughs. “Allen Leech kept saying, ‘That’s only half a million pounds worth of car there, Laura, just one of a few left in the world.’ No pressure, then!” She proceeds to observe that this series shows the sense of liberation that many women feel during the First World War. “People are suddenly aware of jobs becoming available and men’s roles becoming vacant. For example, Edith thinks she can help out with the car.

Watch video:
Branson teaching Lady Edith to drive

“Beforehand they just accepted the boredom in their lives; but now no-one is stopping them from doing anything. They can seize those opportunities. Edith feels liberated now. I think it happens to a lot of them, to Sybil and the girls downstairs as well to a certain extent.” Laura explains how the war also helps everyone keep things in proportion. “I think the characters have to soften because of what they are living through. Friends and family coming back, or news that they’ve been blown to pieces on the front – it puts everything in perspective, you know.”

The actress reveals that she embarked on her own research into the jobs women did during the First World War. “My Nan was in the Land Army in the Second World War, and I didn’t realise how long the Land Army had been going. I also went to the Imperial War Museum and had a look through all the things there. “I found out I’d be doing some farming, so I was interested in that. I found this amazing website on Pathé Films, old vintage films of these women laughing and hoeing fields, saddling the horses. It’s unbelievable; there’s something so moving about watching films with no sound, and they’re still giggling!”

One element which viewers really enjoyed in the first series of Downton Abbey was the constant bitching between Edith and her sister Mary. Laura, who is also appearing in the forthcoming movie, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, reveals, “It’s still very much there. It is still very painful between them. “But Julian has exposed another side of the relationship, which I do think this hatred is tied to: an absolute bond of love that is so much more intense. I think you see that when things start to go very badly for the family. There’s a moment of sisterly love – it does show itself.”

One of the chief pleasures of this job for Laura has been working with the great Maggie Smith. She says, “It’s such fun working with Maggie, she’s incredible to watch. I destroyed a rehearsal the other day by laughing the whole way through it because I couldn’t look at her - she was being too brilliant. “She also has a great sense of humour and enjoys telling stories. So if there’s a moment at the dining table where we’re waiting for stuff to happen or we’re outside having a cup of tea, it’s a joy to get her talking and telling stories. It’s mad, I do pinch myself.”

Laura, for whom this was her first professional job, cannot conceal her delight at being back on the set of Downton Abbey. “It is just a great thing to be a part of, to be honest. I was so excited to be able to hang out with the same people again. “It’s just a joy to work on, we’re laughing all day long. The storylines are great and really exciting. I was turning every page, really excited to find out what was going to happen next.”

Source: Milk Publicity for ITV