charleybrown:
Back when an ‘unknown’ series was about to debut… Tatler 2010
She finds life so different from what she expected it to be. She is besotted with innocent little ambitions, and does not understand this apparent waste of herself, this elaborate preparation, if no work is provided for her. The girl loses something vital out of her life to which she is entitled. She is restricted and unhappy; her elders meanwhile, are unconscious of this situation and we have all the elements of a tragedy.
in-flagrante:
The happiest person ever
Is there Xanax in those water bottles? What is your secret?
Michelle Dockery on the cover of Harper’s Bazaar’s Singapore, December 2012.
Michelle Dockery for Bazaar’s Singapore, December 2012.
“When it came to casting the first episode of Downton Abbey, I was not aware of the very distinguished start that Michelle had already made in her chosen career. All I knew was that I was invited to view some screen tests on the internet, I pressed ‘play’, and there was Lady Mary Crawley. I had this instant recognition of the character I had invented that is both a surprise when it happens (it only rarely does) and also a tremendous relief. That likeable froideur, that witty sense of superiority, that invulnerability with the tiniest crack: all these qualities, which would make the character intriguing instead of simply freezing, were present in Michelle’s performance from day one. Looking at her, I wanted to sing. Mary has a complicated role to play in the story of the Crawley family. To start with, she embodies the central injustice of the aristocratic system as it has evolved: namely, the fact that women have no legal rights, no real existence within it, beyond the job of brood mare. To our generation, it seems extraordinary that a healthy, sentient woman is automatically passed over when it comes to inheriting a title, or in the case of entailed estates, land. So it was important that Mary be a woman who was clearly quite capable of managing such an inheritance, were it to have come to her. This would only underline the absurdity of her exclusion, and few could doubt that Michelle’s Mary would be more than competent behind the wheel, had she been called on to run Downton.”
— Julian Fellowes
