Maggie Smith, who plays Violet, Dowager Countess of Grantham, on Downton Abbey is ready to call it a day.
The 80-year-old actress says that the time has come for ol’ Violet to take a bow.
In her own words, Maggie Smith says the role just doesn’t make sense anymore.
Either way, the series is likely to end next year with season six.
Maggie Smith said, “They say this is the last one, and I can’t see how it could go on.”
She continued, “I mean, I certainly can’t keep going… To my knowledge, I must be 110 by now. We’re into the late 1920s.”
Maggie Smith admitted that she doesn’t even watch the show.
“I will look at it when it’s all over, maybe,” she said back in 2013. “Because it’s frustrating. I always see things that I would like to do differently and think, ‘Oh, why in the name of God did I do that?'”
Though Maggie Smith will leave Downton Abbey, she will by no means retire to her rocking chair in the corner.
“When you’re not working it’s scary, and when you are working it’s scary, because you don’t know if you’ve got the energy to get through the day. But the bleakness of not doing it, and missing out on the friendships that you make, is too much to bear,” she told U.K.’s The Sunday Times.
Maggie Smith loves working, but she doesn’t care for her celebrity status that Downton Abbey has earned her.
“What’s sad is I’ve gone through my whole life without any of that. I could go round galleries and things on my own and I just can’t do it now. If someone decides to get at you, you can’t get away.”
She added, “What’s awful is it used to be just autographs, but now everyone wants photographs. You begin to feel like all those people who believed photographs took the soul away. There’s nothing like privacy, but nobody will have that soon. Nobody’s private any more.”
So true.
Best of luck to Maggie Smith as she moves on with her illustrious career!
