While the Downton Abbey movie will be bringing back most of our favourite characters from the show, one notable absentee will be Lady Rose, played by Lily James.
Of course since Downton ended, Lily has had no shortage of movie roles, from Cinderella to Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again, and her Hollywood success is part of the reason why she won't be appearing in the film.
Speaking about Lily's absence to Entertainment Weekly, executive producer Gareth Neame joked: "She can't be [in it] – she's in every other film in the world at the moment!"
Downton creator Julian Fellowes continued: "Lily is now a big star, and it would've been incredibly difficult for her to find time in her schedule to come and play essentially a supporting role in Downton when her career was in a different place when she was with us."
Fellowes added that Lily was the show's "greatest success story" thanks to her high-profile Hollywood career.
In a life-imitating-art move, Lady Rose left for America at the end of series five of Downton, and was only a recurring character in the final series, so Neame went on to say that, essentially, her story had ended.
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"Technically, she was only a recurring character in the final season," he explained. "She came in and made some visits in a couple of episodes, but her story ended at the end of the fifth season when she went off to America.
"We knew we had to focus on the very core characters because there are not very many movies with 20 leading characters, and the dynamic of the TV series was that all these characters were treated equally.
"That's one thing when you've got 10 or 11 hours of TV drama; another thing when it's a two-hour movie. We had to be quite disciplined about focusing on the really central characters."
Meanwhile, earlier this month, the first look trailer for the Downton Abbey movie hit, "cordially" inviting you to cinemas next September. We'll be there.
The Downton Abbey movie will be released on September 13, 2019 in the UK, and September 20, 2019 in the US.
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Stephanie is a freelance news writer, who previously covered WWE and AEW for Digital Spy.
After graduating with a degree in history from Queen Mary University, London, she studied journalism at Birkbeck University.
Outside of her work at Digital Spy, she writes about pop culture, with a special focus towards Irish media and how it intersects with politics.
You can read more of her work on her Substack page.
