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The Downton Abbey cast says fans can expect tributes to come for the late Maggie Smith.
“I felt her spirit was there, and we were always referencing her,” Elizabeth McGovern, 64, says in PEOPLE’s new special edition about the making of Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale, which is in theaters Sept. 12.
The English dame died on Sept. 27, 2024, at age 89, just a few months after filming wrapped on what will be the big-screen conclusion to Julian Fellowes’ hit PBS drama. Her character, Dowager Countess Violet Crawley, died at the end of 2022’s A New Era, the sequel to 2019’s first Downton Abbey movie.
A picture of her is glimpsed in a teaser trailer for the Simon Curtis-directed Grand Finale, which reunites most of the franchise’s regular cast. “This film is partly a tribute to Maggie and to the dowager,” says Michelle Dockery, 43, who returns as Mary Crawley.
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Among those also back at the Crawley residence will be cast members Hugh Bonneville, Laura Carmichael, Jim Carter, Brendan Coyle, Kevin Doyle, Joanne Froggatt, Robert James-Collier, Allen Leech, Phyllis Logan, Lesley Nicol, Dominic West, Dame Penelope Wilton and Paul Giamatti.
Joining them this time around are Joely Richardson, Alessandro Nivola, Simon Russell Beale and Arty Froushan.
Sophie McShera, who plays Daisy Mason, recalls that Smith was much of the cast’s most coveted scene partner throughout filming the series, which aired from 2010 to 2015.
“On the way home everyone was going, ‘You’ve got a scene with Maggie, you’ve got a scene with Maggie!’ ” says the actress, 40. “I remember just feeling so honored.”
Wilton, who played Isobel Crawley on the series, recalls that Smith “had the best lines” as the Dowager Countess. “Mostly I’m on the receiving end with my mouth falling open at her audacity,” says The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel star, 79. “We always had a good laugh because the scenes were so spiked.”
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Downton executive producer Gareth Neame first hinted in a December 2024 TVLine interview that the upcoming third movie will include a “meaningful” tribute to Smith. “We will never see the like of Dame Maggie Smith ever again,” he said, calling the loss of the two-time Oscar winner “the end of an era.”
Speaking to PEOPLE in April, Giamatti, 58, said filming the upcoming movie “was not the same without [Smith], but it felt very much like in her honor in some way. She certainly still feels present through the whole thing.”
Go behind the scenes of Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale with PEOPLE’s new special issue, available here. The movie is in theaters Sept. 12.
