Over her six-decade career, Dame Maggie Smith brought corrosive wit and unimpeachable gravitas to everything she did.
But there was so much more to the two-time Oscar winner, who was best known in her later years for her roles in “Gosford Park,” the “Harry Potter” franchise and PBS’ hit period drama “Downton Abbey.” The actress, who died last September at age 89, was a blistering force of nature in the latter as Dowager Countess Violet Crawley, who presided over the upper-crust Crawley family in early 1900s England.
The character died in 2022 sequel film “Downton Abbey: A New Era” and is memorialized in third movie “Downtown Abbey: The Grand Finale” (in theaters Sept. 12). Off screen, co-star Michelle Dockery remembers Smith as being “whip-smart” and “incredibly funny.”
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As the Dowager Countess on “Downton Abbey,” Maggie Smith brilliantly mastered the art of the searing put-down.
“We spent a lot of time laughing together,” Dockery says. She recalls filming “A New Era” in 2021, as anxieties were still high coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic. “Maggie had that cane as the Dowager. If somebody got just a little bit too close, she would pull up the cane so there was distance between her and the other person. But she’d do it in a way that was just so funny: whipping up the cane really quickly so the person couldn’t come any closer. I used to love it when she did that.”
Between takes, Smith took pleasure in playing Bananagrams, a word game similar to Scrabble.
“Maggie was the best at it,” Dockery says. “Not only did you have to up your game when it came to acting around Maggie, but playing games together as well.”
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“Downton” director Simon Curtis and actor Hugh Bonneville both recall Smith’s immense love of professional tennis. “I remember us texting each other that famous year where Emma Raducanu won the U.S. Open,” Curtis says. “That was a nice bonding thing for the two of us.”
Smith also adored the actresses who played Violet’s onscreen grandchildren.
“People might be surprised by the size of her heart,” Bonneville says. “Her scathing wit is legendary, but she also had genuine affection and compassion for people. She spent a lot of time with the girls,” especially Laura Carmichael, who portrayed Lady Edith and was always “coming up with cat videos to show (Smith) on YouTube.”
Maggie Smith “wasn’t sentimental, but she had a big heart,” Hugh Bonneville remembers. “She was tough on herself more than anyone, because she hated not being at the top of her game.”
“Maggie could be quite frightening and sharp; you had to mind your Ps and Qs,” “Downton” creator Julian Fellowes says. “But she was very kind to the young ones when they were beginning. They were nervous about some of their early scenes with Maggie, because she was very much established as a great Oscar-winning stage and screen actress long before she’d ever heard the phrase ‘Downton Abbey.’ But she was very kind to them.
“You wouldn’t have thought Maggie was the Bananagrams type,” he adds. “I can tell you that she managed to become one for the purposes of being in the show. Often in a long-running show, one or two actors will be the leaders of the company. Maggie was certainly the leader of this one and she played that role with dignity.”
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: ‘Downton Abbey’ cast reveals Maggie Smith’s surprising pastime
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