11. Though Lady Edith Crawley would go on to become her breakout function, Laura Carmichael practically didn’t attend her audition for the series.
Because she was starring in a touring production of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, Carmichael confessed to Tribune News Service, “I thought it was going to be a ‘Yes, milord,’ a half-day’s filming, one line maybe. But it would be good to have on your CV that you’d done telly. And I thought, ‘I’m going to have to turn down this dream Shakespeare for this TV job. What a disaster!'”
12. In 2012, Gillian Anderson exposed she declined the part of Cora Crawley, with Elizabeth McGovern eventually playing Downton’s American heiress-turned-Countess of Grantham.Â
13. Per Vanity Fair, Queen Elizabeth II was a big fan of the program and would fact-check it for enjoyable. “She loves to pick out the mistakes,” At Home with the Queen author Brian Hoey declared to People. Prince William likewise confessed to enjoying the series, according to star Allan Leech.
“I shook his hand and he actually said, ‘I’m a big fan of the show, only now that my wife’s had a baby,'” he remembered on Watch What Happens Live in 2013. “Obviously he’s got a great deal of down time, so [Kate]’s got him enjoying this. ‘You’re going to see it with me!'”
