Nobody thought that the British period drama "Downton Abbey" would be as successful as it is today, much less series creator Julian Fellowes and the rest of the cast and crew of the show.
Season after season, the show's rise to fame and viewership surprised everybody, and it became such a treat for Fellowes and his crew for audiences to fall in love with the world they have already fallen in love with themselves.
Hugh Bonneville, who stars as Lord Grantham in "Downton Abbey" said that he has loved every minute working on the show, and admitted that it felt very "weird" that they've finally wrapped up production.
"We were all expecting to finish after Series 1, actually," he added during his interview with Collider. "And then, it got extended to Series 3, and that's when two of our much loved and much missed friends left. And then, it was going to be done with Series 5, but Julian Fellowes said, 'I'd like to do one more.' So it's been a series of extensions, rather than wondering how much longer we can go on for."
Fellowes has said that it is unlikely that he'll be involved with something as successful as "Downton Abbey" again, and Bonneville thinks that the folks of the show feel the same way.
"None of us will," he said. "It's never happened to me before, in my career, and never will again. It's a one-off experience. It's a rare treat to have a cast together for six years. Crews come and go, and a few of them have been there throughout, but not many. It's rare, in my experience, after 26 years, to have had a proper company in a show that enjoys each other's company, and who is such a fine bunch of people and actors. To have struck a chord with people, and to have had that combination, is extremely rare."
Bonneville likes to keep busy, and that is why after "Downton Abbey," he went straight to work on a film with Gillian Anderson called "Viceroy's House."
"It's about the partition of India in 1947. It was this tumultuous period when Lord Mountbatten, and she's playing Lady Mountbatten, was the last Viceroy of India," he shared. "Their job was to get the British out of India prior to independence. Neighbor turned on neighbor, and it was a firestorm waiting to happen. It's all about that period of history."
It is only after "Viceroy's House" that Bonneville will take a breather from work. "I think I'll take a couple of months off, which is something I've never, ever done. I'm quite tired, so it will be good. After six years of being on this particular train, it's time to call a halt," he said.
