Downton Abbey star Harry Hadden-Paton is opening up about what it was like to work with the late Maggie Smith.
“She was such a big part of the show,” Hadden-Paton, 44, exclusively told Us Weekly on Tuesday, September 8, ahead of the premiere of his new movie, Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale.
“As soon as we sat around the table, people were like, ‘Should we text Maggie? Should we send her a picture? She’s just everywhere,” he continued. “And physically, there was a portrait of her watching us, making us behave. She was scary as hell, but had the heart of an actress. If you engaged with her as an actor, that’s when she lit up.”
The beloved actress and Harry Potter star died on September 27, 2024. She was 89.
“She passed away peacefully in hospital early this morning, Friday 27th September. An intensely private person, she was with friends and family at the end. She leaves two sons and five loving grandchildren who are devastated by the loss of their extraordinary mother and grandmother,” her surviving sons, Chris Larkin and Toby Stephens, said in a statement to the BBC at the time, confirming their mother’s death. “We would like to take this opportunity to thank the wonderful staff at the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital for their care and unstinting kindness during her final days.”
They concluded by thanking everyone for “all your kind messages and support and ask that you respect our privacy at this time.”
Smith was a staple on the hit series Downton Abbey, memorably playing fan-favorite Dowager Countess, a role that earned the late actress four Emmy wins. Hadden-Paton admits that without the legendary actress on set, things felt a little less stressful.
“It was a bit more relaxed,” he explained. “And it moved quicker.”
Still, Hadden-Paton’s costar, Kevin Doyle, told Us that the cast and crew found ways to incorporate Smith into filming while on set.
“Her presence is felt all the way through it,” Doyle, 65, explained on Tuesday. “She’s actually seen in [the movie], which is lovely. We were very aware when we were making it that she wasn’t around, and that was very poignant.”
He added, “We just tried our best to — you can’t fill in the gap that she leaves, so you just try your best to do the best work that you can. And I think that’s what she’d expect.”
Hadden-Paton, Doyle can recall clearly what it was like to work with and alongside Smith on the TV series.
“I don’t know how any awards or Oscars she’d won — she’d won a lot of stuff — but she didn’t carry that with her,” he said of Smith, who won two Oscars, more than 100 awards and was three-fourths the way towards earning a coveted EGOT before she died.
“She was as hard working as anyone else and applied herself in the way any professional would,” he added. “That’s what she expected of everyone else. She wanted to be part of the company she loved. She loved the girls, and just enjoyed being an actor.”
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