‘No truth’ to reports of Maggie Smith leaving ‘Downton Abbey’

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How much longer will the Dowager Countess of Grantham be hanging around Downton Abbey?

That’s the question prompted by a report in Britain’s Daily Mail that Dame Maggie Smith wants out of ‘Downton Abbey’ after its third season. According to the report, Smith asked series creator Julian Fellowes to write her acid-tongued character out of the series so she could return to her career on stage and screen.

However, a representative for Carnival Film and Television Limited, co-producers of the hit PBS series says, ‘Series 3 is currently filming with Maggie along with the other cast. We do not comment on future story lines, however there is no truth in the story that Maggie is leaving the show.’

What is assured is that someone will get written out of the show during the now-filming season. ‘Masterpiece’ executive producer Rebecca Eaton was recently speaking to PBS supporters in Florida and revealed that the new season of ‘Downtown Abbey,’ taking place in the 1920s, would feature a birth and a death. ‘Somebody pretty key in the cast, unfortunately is not going to make it,’ she said according to the Orlando Sentinel.

She also addressed the status of Smith herself, whose on-set behavior doesn’t sound too far off from that of the Dowager Countess herself. According to Eaton, ‘Maggie Smith is a handful, it’s true. She’s very difficult. She knows her worth, and she’s tricky on the set, but she delivers when the time comes.’

The new season, which will air in the U.S. in January 2013, will also feature Shirley MacLaine as the American mother of Lady Cora (played by Elizabeth McGovern).

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-- Patrick Kevin Day