London (AFP)
The English aristocrats favorite fans of series around the world have made their return, this time on the big screen, in the film "Downton Abbey", whose world premiere was Monday night in London.
Nine years after the broadcast of the first episode of the series, stopped in 2015 after six seasons, "Downton Abbey" recalls the Crawley family. It is waiting for a major event: the visit of King George V and Queen Mary.
"I did not particularly think about a film when the series stopped (...) but there was this kind of wave of demand for the film and finally it became reality", explained to AFP Julian Fellowes, creator of the series of which he is the scriptwriter and the film, before the screening in central London.
All the cast of the series is gathered, including Maggie Smith, interpreter of the cantankerous actress countess, who had initially refused to slip back into the robes of the oldest member of the family.
Other actors joined the team as Imelda Staunton (the odious Dolores Umbridge in Harry Potter), who plays Lady Bagshaw. She joins her husband in town, Jim Carter, who plays retired butler Charles Carson.
If the couple had scenes in common, Imelda Staunton did not manage to be served by her husband: "I did not get anything from him ... He was on the other side of the dining room! ", she confided, falsely outraged, to AFP.
Awarded the Golden Globes and Emmy American awards as well as the British Bafta, the "Downton Abbey" series has been seen by about 120 million people in more than 200 countries.
It traces the ups and downs of a family of aristocrats and their servants, from 1912 to late 1925, mixing small and great history.
The film of American Michael Engler, who has directed episodes of series like Sex and the City, The Big C or Downton Abbey, will be released Friday in the United Kingdom and September 25 in France.
It resumes in 1927, a year after the general strike that pitted the British working world against employers and the conservative Stanley Baldwin government, and promises even more glamor and ostentation than the series, with rivalries and romances on every floor. .
© 2019 AFP