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Why I turned down marriage to Sean Penn and begged on my knees to play Downton's mistress: Elizabeth McGovern on Hollywood stardom and TV's biggest show

'I'll often do the American thing and say exactly what I think, which is not terribly British. I feel very out of place then,' said Elizabeth McGovern, who plays Lady Cora on Downton Abbey

Are you ready for the return of Downton-mania? The frenzied craze for the costume drama to end all costume dramas is set to shoot right off the scale when series four launches next weekend.

And even the normally unflappable Royals are getting in a lather over the imminent return of Lady Mary, Carson, the Earl of Grantham and his porcelain-skinned wife, Lady Cora, the Countess, played by the stunning American actress Elizabeth McGovern.

Except, unlike normal Downton fans, when the Royals crave a hit of their favourite show, they can simply turn up at Highclere Castle – the stately home where it is filmed – to meet the stars.

‘Pippa Middleton came with her mum and her brother,’ McGovern reveals, as she whisks Event on a whirlwind tour.

‘They were lovely. They asked lots of questions, stayed to watch some of the filming.

‘Pippa was very pretty and polite and I’d definitely say the cast were probably more excited than the guests. I had a big chat with her mum, too.’

On her immediate success: 'Things happened so fast for me. I was 18, 19, 20,' said Elizabeth

McGovern recalls watching a group of senior White House aides strolling open-mouthed across the perfectly manicured lawns one afternoon, and she personally welcomed Hollywood stars Ashton Kutcher and his girlfriend Mila Kunis on to the set.

‘They were only in England for a few days but they wanted to see Downton – it’s a mind-blowing thing for most Americans to see that it is actually filmed in this incredible location at Highclere.

‘Just walking up and seeing that building is remarkable. Ashton and Mila were very sweet and really interested in everything.’

Downton super-fans are truly fanatical, says McGovern, and pull the craziest stunts to indulge their passion.

Michelle Obama didn’t want to wait until the third series returned to U.S. television in January 2013 so she had an assistant contact ITV to get her hands on some DVDs of the new episodes.

And Rolling Stone Ronnie Wood told McGovern’s on-screen husband, Hugh Bonneville, with whom the Stones guitarist has struck up a friendship, that the band would call a halt to rehearsals for their huge comeback tour early on Sundays so they could catch the show every week. It helps that Jagger’s a fan, too.

Chris Colfer, star of the hit U.S. show Glee, posted a picture of himself on Twitter recently posing proudly in front of Highclere Castle, and godmother of grunge Courtney Love shared a shot of herself on social media jumping around her living room excitedly as the opening credits to the show roll on her TV set.

McGovern laughs when I tell her about the rapper P Diddy, who took his own unlikely Downton obsession one step further by posting a spoof video of himself on YouTube playing alongside several of the show’s best-known characters.

‘MY BIG NEWS!’, the superstar tweeted in February. ‘So happy to announce that I’m a series regular on Downton Abbey – my favourite show.’

'I'm definitely a different species on Downton. The way an American acts, the way they look at a script is different. We feel our way into something,' said Elizabeth

The massive success of the show is not something McGovern, 52, imagined.

It’s ITV’s most successful period drama ever, winning Emmys in America, spawning a Hollywood career for Dan Stevens who – as Matthew Crawley – was killed in a car crash in the last series.

‘We miss him,’ she says. The Downton cast are extremely close.

‘It is incredibly hard work, long days, late shoots, but we are a real team. It’s an amazing thing to work on a show that is so successful; that has an unbelievable effect on the cast.

‘There’s definitely a split between the young ones and the older ones. But on set we have ways of keeping ourselves amused.

'Michelle (Dockery, Lady Mary) and Allen (Leech, the chauffeur-turned-gentleman) are brilliant mimics. He does a flamboyant fashion designer act, Michelle does a great LA actress on the red carpet. Then Maggie (Smith) has all her anecdotes, which are amazing.’

I meet McGovern in the restaurant of a West London studio, and over cappuccino she casually gives me a great Downton scoop: as the Grantham family move into the Roaring Twenties, the women are finally granted their freedom . . . from their clothes.

‘That’s right, no corsets this time, a big bonus. We can breathe again! The dresses are a lot more comfortable.’

I push McGovern for more revelations, but she remains cagey about what we can expect – Downton stars are kept on a famously tight leash when it comes to revealing forthcoming script details.

'My tragedy is I don't have many scenes with Shirley (MacLaine) because the dynamic is seeing her with Maggie (Smith). They are great together,' said Elizabeth

Self-confessed Twitter addict Dan Stevens blurted some details of a Christmas plot, only to be hauled over the coals by the notoriously secretive executives.

‘It was a case of giving them my mobile phone,’ he said at the time. McGovern rolls her eyes but won’t be drawn further.

In the new series, Hollywood returns to Downton in the form of Shirley MacLaine (who plays Cora’s mother) and in a new character, her playboy brother, Harold, the actor Paul Giamatti (Sideways, The Truman Show).

‘My tragedy is I don’t have many scenes with Shirley because the dynamic is seeing her with Maggie. They are great together.

'When Shirley arrives, the stories that get told get better and better. But for me it is wonderful to have American actors there,’ says McGovern.

She pauses: ‘I’m definitely a different species on Downton. The way an American acts, the way they look at a script is different. We feel our way into something; a scene in an American show will take 20 minutes longer and I’m so very conscious of this.

'I stood and waited for Paul to do a scene with Hugh. When it was over he looked shocked. He said, “He just looked at the script and then boom, he delivered. Effortless. It was like there’s some on/off button they have that we don’t. I mean, how do they do that?” I was standing there thinking, “Yes! Finally someone else gets what it’s like for me.” ’

Elizabeth grew up in LA and became an actress contrary to family expectations. Success was instant, overwhelming and huge. Her first film, at 19, was Ordinary People, with Timothy Hutton. It won four Oscars

Like Cora – whom she loves (‘She’s a really good, decent woman. She doesn’t make dramas, she just tries to make everything right for everyone else’) – McGovern is an American in England married to film director and producer Simon Curtis (My Week With Marilyn, The Rise And Fall Of Little Voice).

Her eldest daughter, Matilda, is reading English at Oxford and her youngest, Grace, is 15. Her life has been about gently breaking rules. Her parents are American academics. Her mother was a teacher, her father a professor, her great-grandfather a famous diplomat.

As revealed in the Mail on Sunday last month, McGovern plays and sings ‘mum music’ in her band Sadie And The Hot Heads, but she never went to a rock concert as a teenager.

‘In my family it was classical or maybe jazz,’ she says.

She grew up in LA and became an actress contrary to family expectations. Success was instant, overwhelming and huge.

Her first film, at 19, was Ordinary People, with Donald Sutherland and Timothy Hutton. It won four Oscars. Her second, Ragtime, earned her an Oscar nomination. Her third, Once Upon A Time In America, pitched her against Robert De Niro as the object of his sexual obsession.

The same year – 1984 – she starred in Racing With The Moon with Sean Penn. Penn fell madly in love with her, they got engaged – everything was pointing to a Hollywood superstar future. So she split from Penn and left LA to study theatre in New York.

In 1984, Elizabeth's third film, Once Upon A Time In America, pitched her against Robert De Niro as the object of his sexual obsession

You can’t help asking why. Surely if she had stayed in Hollywood, her life would have been very different.

‘Married Sean?’ She rolls her eyes. ‘I think I was the lucky one to do what I did.

'Things happened so fast for me. I was 18, 19, 20. I would walk into a room and people would agree with everything I said; everything I did was brilliant.

‘It may look like I had a fear of that success but I didn’t. I found the whole thing strange.

'I was painfully aware I didn’t know most of the time what the hell I was doing.

'I was also very aware I had very little life experience to draw from. I never really bought into that whole lifestyle.’

So Penn married Madonna, while McGovern met British producer Curtis and left America.

She laughs: ‘I didn’t have a plan. Career success is a crap-shoot. I guess if anything that has always been my modus operandi . . . and to listen to yourself.’

Britain suited her. She loves the humour, the architecture, the people.

‘Although I’ll often do the American thing and say exactly what I think, which is not terribly British. I feel very out of place then.’

When the role of Lady Cora came up, she begged (‘on my knees’) for the chance to play her.

In 1984 Elizabeth starred in Racing With The Moon with Sean Penn. The actor fell madly in love with her and they got engaged... But she split from Penn and left LA to study theatre in New York

‘I got her, the idea she was an American in England, that she left her home for love, that she was a mother of daughters . . . and that she was married to Hugh Bonneville.’ She smiles.

‘For some reason we have been cast as husband and wife a few times (they were cast as partners in the comedy Freezing). I love working with him. We have a sort of shorthand, we know what the other is thinking. He’s really funny but he doesn’t actually seem aware of that.’

McGovern’s rapport with her co-stars could lead to a very different kind of collaboration than the ones she has shared with Bonneville over the years.

There is talk of a Downton Supergroup, featuring Leech, Dockery and McGovern, all gifted musicians. Dockery is a trained jazz singer and talented guitarist; Leech is a folk/rock guitarist who played in a band called the Fluid Druids at university.

McGovern says there is a chance they might come together for a special performance.

‘The idea is maybe to do something to tie in with a charity. We happen to have a lot of musicians in the cast but as yet we’ve never formalised anything. It would be interesting and definitely very different, I wouldn’t know which way we’d go musically but it’s a fun idea.’

Dockery has already performed on stage with Sadie And The Hotheads.

‘She has an amazing voice, just completely natural,’ smiles McGovern.

‘She’s beautiful, she’s funny, she’s a great actress and then you stand back and hear her sing. She’s amazing. She has a totally natural ability.

'I love performing with her, she’s a big fan of the band and has that same excitement I do about playing. You don’t get the chance on Downton to play much.

Elizabeth plays and sings 'mum music' in her band Sadie And The Hot Heads, but she never went to a rock concert as a teenager

'A few of the cast bring in guitars but the pace gets faster and faster so it’s pretty much an outside occupation. Lovely to share a stage with Michelle though, it’s definitely something special.’

She ponders the question of her own rebellious spirit. She didn’t form the group until she was in her early 40s – not the usual time to start a rock ’n’ roll career.

‘Perhaps this is my rebellion,’ she says. ‘I didn’t rebel when I was a teenager and yes it is bizarre that this came about at this point. But when it goes well and people are watching you and singing . . . well. It’s like heroin. It’s totally addictive.

'And that’s why you just never want to stop. I know it’s not expected for a woman like me, but maybe that’s the point. I didn’t do this when I was young, now I know exactly how it should be done and I know exactly what I want to say.’

The final twist of irony on McGovern’s life is her return to Hollywood with Downton. She – and the rest of the cast – are the toast of LA (the show has three nominations at this year’s Emmys).

‘That definitely feels good, to go back with this incredible British success. You couldn’t have planned anything like that but I couldn’t be happier.’

14 September 2013

#Elizabeth McGovern #Downton Abbey #Cora Crawley #Sadie and the Hotheads #Interviews

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Downton Abbey Series 4 Preview from ITV (Embed disabled!)

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Reader’s Digest (Oct 2013)

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Downton Abbey series 4: Elizabeth McGovern says, “O’Brien’s departure is a trauma that takes on greater proportions” for Lady Cora! (INTERVIEW) *Spoilers*

Fans of Downton Abbey will most likely know that lady’s maid O’Brien – who was played by the fabulous Siobhan Finneran – has left the estate and taken up a post with one of Lady Cora’s relatives!

And that’s something that’s set to cause Lady Cora some upset in the forthcoming fourth series of the show.

Elizabeth McGovern, who of course plays Lady Cora, explained, “I think she experiences a little bit of displacement grief when she finds out O’Brien left in the middle of the night…

“You know how sometimes, when there’s a generalised sadness, it manifests in an overreaction to something that is really not that huge?

“Well O’Brien’s departure is a minor trauma, but it takes on an even greater proportion as a displacement for the major trauma, which is of course the hole created by Matthew’s death.”

Next, Elizabeth discussed Cora’s marriage to Robert – who’s played by Hugh Bonneville – which was of course sorely tested last year over the death of Sybil.

She remarked, “Even though we see them as basically an extremely happily married couple, Cora’s more willing to take another side of an argument than Robert is.

“She feels much more comfortable doing so, and also – which I’m really happy about when I see it in the script – she’s much more impatient [in the new series] with his flaws than she has been in seasons past.

“So she’ll be impatient with him when he’s being obstinate about moving on with the times, and things like that.

“But all of that is still within the context of a lot of love and understanding on Cora’s part for her husband.”

Elizabeth added of Cora, “She’s a woman of her time, and she makes the best of the deal she made marrying Robert [but] I had wondered if we’d ever be seeing Cora make more demands for herself because of the changing expectations of women…

“But what’s seeming to happen is that she’s projecting it on to her children and her grandchildren, and making demands for them.

“She’s still very happy to take a passive role herself, and to have no expectations for herself.”

However, Elizabeth remarked that Cora’s main goal is to help her daughter Mary – who’s played by Michelle Dockery – to move on from Matthew’s death.

She said, “She wants to make things right again. Cora’s modus operandi is very much to try to move Mary on…

“To move the whole family on actually, and to give Mary another dimension to her life by giving her some power and control over the estate.

“And even though Cora accepts a complete lack of power and control for herself in her own life without batting an eye, she very much wants it for her daughter.”

With regard to how Cora adapts to being a grandmother twice over in the new series, Elizabeth said, “You don’t see her on her hands and knees with the children very much…

“But that’s symptomatic of the time – children were raised by staff. But she’s definitely got their best interests very much in her mind.

“She’s particularly protective of the chauffeur’s daughter, and the complication that she might inherit as a result of that.

“That’s something that I really appreciated about the writing of that part – that Cora had a chance to come to the little girl’s aid.”

We’ll see how she does so in the first episode, when we get a glimpse of the prejudice that little Sybbie may have to face throughout her life.

September 13th, 2013

#Elizabeth McGovern #Downton Abbey #Cora Crawley #Interviews

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Downton Abbey's Elizabeth McGovern angry at stuck-up pompous snobs on set

DOWNTON ABBEY star Elizabeth McGovern says her genteel screen character is nothing like her hot-tempered real self.

The American actress, who plays Lady Cora, Countess of Grantham, says she sometimes feels like taking a swing at her on-screen husband, actor Hugh Bonneville, because he is so convincing at playing a pompous aristocrat.

Elizabeth, 52, says she would love to have the “grace and dignity” of her Downton character but she has too much “anger” inside.

“I get totally suckered by his [Hugh’s] portrayal of Robert,” she says. “I don’t know if you can see it on screen but I’m often sitting there thinking, ‘One of these days I am going to wring your damn neck, you stuck-up, pompous snob.

“Watch me closely in the new series… see if you can catch me getting ready to kick his ass.”

Elizabeth, whose grandfather was a Buddhist, says a quiet life is not for her. She told Reader’s Digest: “When I do get time off I’m way too busy going to the supermarket and cooking the family dinner to go and live in a monastery. And I’m probably too angry to meditate.

“I’m not trying to paint a picture of some terrible personality disorder but you ask anyone who really knows me and they’ll tell you they see a lot of anger. Look at the way we treat the world and let each other down, the unfairness of life. I’m not necessarily talking about my life, because I get compensated very well for my job, but that doesn’t stop me getting cross at some of the things I see.”

Co-star Laura Carmichael, meanwhile, has revealed the show’s creator Julian Fellowes insists the cast maintain the stiff upper lip of the era. He even banned her and Michelle Dockery, who plays her sister Lady Mary, from hugging as they acted out scenes in the wake of the death in a car crash of Lady Mary’s husband Matthew.

September 13, 2013

#Elizabeth McGovern #Downton Abbey #Cora Crawley

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‘Downton Abbey’ season four: Elizabeth McGovern interview

The actress who plays Lady Cora Crawley talks about the fourth season of ‘Downton Abbey’, working with Paul Giamatti and ‘new blood and new depth’

Is Cora bereft without O’Brien [whose departure is announced at the start of season four]? ‘Yeah, it’s horrible. I’ve always loved the complication of two people who are very intimate, but that intimacy is based on one person paying the other some money. Cora’s really hurt, but it’s just a job for O’Brien. Cora has to resolve herself to an ever-changing picture when it comes to lady’s maids.’

How has Cora dealt with all the grief she’s suffered? ‘She’s the character who’s suffered the worst, I think – the death of a child and a son-in-law. She’s come out of it wanting to just have fun with what she’s got left, and she’s encouraging Robert and the girls to enjoy life a little bit as well.’

Were you surprised by the public reaction to Matthew’s death? ‘I was pleased. We’ve done our job if people are so involved that they have that kind of response. otherwise its a very bland affair. You want people to get pissed off or incredibly happy.’

Paul Giamatti joins the cast as Cora’s brother. ‘That was really fun. I’ve known Paul since drama school. As an American, it was reassuring to have someone so familiar, it makes me feel really at home. He’s a really fantastic actor – great attitude, great fun.’

What is Cora’s relationship with her brother? ‘I don’t think they’re particularly close. It’s been years since they've seen each other and you’re aware of how far Cora’s come in assimilating herself into her English family. Her American family seem so culturally different.’

Did you imagine ‘Downton’ becoming so big? ‘Not at all. Especially in America – I was so shocked! I’ve done everything the opposite of what you’re supposed to do if you want to have a career in Hollywood, but I’m still there. It’s miraculous.’

Are there any jaw-droppers this series? ‘Yes, but that’s as much as I can say.’

What’s Cora’s relationship with Robert like now? ‘Cora recognises his shortcomings and takes him to task for them. She wants to help him adjust to a changing world that he naturally resists. But she’s very much in love with him still.’

How did you feel about this season? ‘I was excited. We’d had a nice break so I felt fresh. I’m still really engaged by the writing after four years. I don’t approach it as a job that’s good for my career.’

Has there been a change of tone and pace? ‘I think there’s more depth to everything – I felt that when we worked on it. Julian knows us and we know our characters and relationships, so there’s an opportunity to dig deeper and for new characters to come in. They always cast them so well. So there’s new blood and new depth.’

Sep 12 2013

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Downton Abbey Series 4 (2013)

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Downton Abbey Series 4 (2013)

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Downton Abbey's Elizabeth McGovern rocks a new career path

Whatever would Carson think? The dignified and demure Lady Cora, she of the glorious gowns and discreet necklines, clad in a short, sexy black lace dress, strutting her stuff on stage with a huge guitar slung around her neck. And in electric pink suede ankle boots ... It's enough to make the butler's stiff upper lip bristle.

As elegant Lady Grantham of Downton Abbey, actress Elizabeth McGovern is more accustomed to being swathed in silk and adorned with jewels. But tonight the glamorous American-born actress is inhabiting her alter ego: that of a rock chick.

It's an amazing transformation. As she sashays onto the stage, arms waving above her head to the band's drumbeat, the audience - from young women clad in pink T-shirts, to those enjoying a family picnic - jump to their feet. And as the band goes through the seven numbers of the half-hour set, they dance and clap along to the songs. McGovern, strumming her guitar behind the microphone, looks relaxed. But she is compellingly charismatic.

As she introduces one number with the words "you're never too old" and a very large grin, there is no hint of the pre-performance nerves she says always wrack her before she goes onstage. (Asked about any rituals she has before the show, she had raised an eyebrow and told me: "Panic.") But under the lights, singing the songs she has so carefully crafted, she looks absolutely in her element.

McGovern hands out flyers on Edinburgh's Royal Mile to promote a Sadie and the Hotheads gig.

At 19 she played Timothy Hutton's girlfriend in Robert Redford's Academy Award-winning movie Ordinary People, and had the sort of overnight success most actresses can only dream of.

By her fourth film, Sergio Leone's Once Upon A Time In America, she was ready for the big one. As Robert De Niro's co-star in the gangster epic she was required to age 40 years and participate in perhaps the most graphic rape scene in cinema history in the back of a limousine.

Then, within a four-month period in 1992, she met English producer/director Simon Curtis, became pregnant and swapped Hollywood for suburban married life in Chiswick, West London.

She told the Daily Mail: "I really just stripped away my past life and it was incredibly freeing. I was living in such a high-speed world. I didn't feel I was getting anywhere in that area of my life."

She now says she'd be fine if she never made another film in America - yet, ironically, Downton Abbey has enjoyed huge success there, receiving 12 Emmy nominations last month.

As she climbs off stage, she tells me "that was such fun!", her face beaming with a mixture of euphoria and relief. "Just lovely. I love acting, and I love Downton. But I love this too. The two worlds are so very different."

Her voice is soft and lilting, her accent still gently hinting at her American origins.

There is no doubt that McGovern's Downton credentials have helped Sadie and the Hotheads build an audience. But her wistful, soulful music has seen the band start to build an enviable reputation in their own right. They recently opened for Sting at the Montreux Jazz Festival, released a second album,How Not To Lose Things, and performed at last month's Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

McGobvern with Downton Abbey co-star Shirley MacLaine.

Watching her carry out a sound check at Audley End House, where the band was the warm-up act for Ronan Keating, there is certainly little evidence of the Countess. McGovern's long, lean legs are encased in skinny blue jeans, and she wears a purple long-sleeved T-shirt top and oversized sunglasses.

The songs too, most of them written by her, are a far cry from the sort of melodies Lady Grantham might have enjoyed: Wistful songs about meeting kids at the school gates, or dealing with a debt collector. "Mum music", McGovern calls it. Songs about everyday working life.

Surrounded by her five other band members there is nothing to indicate the actress is anything other than a working musician. It is a transformation she has come to relish, even if singing before an audience of more than 2000 still fills her with nerves.

"There's the most indescribable high when everything comes into place with the music onstage," she tells me when we meet backstage.

"When the musicians can hear each other, and you have the audience giving you such attention its an amazing feeling of power and, well, joy. There is nothing as immediate as the joy of making a connection with people through music."

Of her guitar, she says: "I find it such a source of comfort. The whole sensual feel of it, it's very relaxing to me. The guitar sits in your lap ... it has all those wonderful vibrations."

Elizabeth McGovern as Cora, Countess of Grantham, on Downton Abbey.

Sadie has, however, rather startled some Downton fans. When the band did a mini tour of the UK, Downton diehards turned up in their droves. "They were expecting choral, classical music or a string quartet," says McGovern. "I could see their shocked faces. But I'm happy to say that by the end of the show they were smiling."

When the fourth series of Downton airs next month, her character is, she says, hoping to emerge from the grief and doom-laden role of the last series in which she lost both her daughter, Lady Sybil, and son-in-law Matthew.

There is, too, she reveals, a new love interest for son-in-law Tom, played by Allen Leech.

"He has got a very interesting story this season," she says. "He has lost his beloved wife. Now, he's in this family, how does he move on and find another woman? All these sort of complicated things are thrown up; does he marry the working class girl (his new nanny) and bring her to the Abbey? It's quite brilliant, I can't wait for people to see it."

Having soprano Dame Kiri Te Kanawa (who will play Dame Nelly Melba in the new series) on the set was thrilling, she says.

"Everything about her was impressive. She is a true, true star. But, no, I wouldn't dream of suggesting a duet."

In fact, McGovern found the whole experience of being on a British set a breath of fresh air compared with the Hollywood machine.

"We were always laughing. There was always someone at the elegant dining table who would ask the butler for a bottle of ketchup and send everyone into hysterics.

"Everybody approached the work with such discipline and lack of ego. I had my first jobs in Hollywood, where the way of proceeding makes great movies but it's not as disciplined. The approach here is so much more self-effacing.

"In Hollywood, the big stars have more ego and are more indulged. Psychologically I feel more English; I'm more in tune (here)."

Hugh Bonneville and Elizabeth McGovern play husband and wife on Downton Abbey, but previously performed together in the British TV program Freezing.

It seems curiously apt, then, that tonight she is performing in front of yet another stately home. In McGovern's dressing room, a wobbly white tent, there is a mirror, fruit, nuts, and an opened bottle of red wine - though very little of it has been consumed.

In such a setting it seems even more unlikely that Lady Cora should don a guitar and sing. But McGovern, the daughter of an academic at Northwestern University, has never followed convention.

After her early film success, she became engaged at just 22 to actor Sean Penn, whom she met on the set of the 1984 drama Racing with the Moon, but they split not long after.

With superstardom beckoning, she swapped LA for the suburban home life she shares with Simon, and their daughters Matilda, 20, and Grace, 15.

"I think I'm so lucky because I have a life I can live in much more happily than the one I was living in Los Angeles," she has said. "Leaving was never about giving it all up for love, it was about saving myself."

Sadie and the Hotheads formed in 2009, initially playing low-key dates in London pubs with McGovern make-up free in an attempt to shed her famous image.

But her flirtation with music began 12 years ago when she answered a newspaper advert for guitar lessons and found herself being taught by Steve Nelson, who with his brother Simon make up the duo The Nelson Brothers.

Initially, Steve didn't recognise his famous student.

"She just told me she was an actress," he recalled. But when he spoke to his brother in America later that night he reeled off all the films in which she had starred. "I felt rather embarrassed."

At the time McGovern was playing old American folk songs, blues, and Bob Dylan numbers as a form of homespun relaxation. She had no thought of launching a new career.

"I just enjoyed it," she tells me. "I had played guitar when I was a child - I had lessons from around the age of nine. My parents were both academics and I grew up in a musical household - but all the music around me at home was classical. Like most people of that era I was obsessed by the singer songwriters of the day - Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell. But I didn't dream of becoming a rock star, I wanted to be a vet, and briefly fantasised about being a ballet dancer."

Why didn't she? "Lack of talent," she answers with a self-deprecating laugh, but adds: "and I had a knee injury."

McGovern and Bonneville as Cora, Countess of Grantham and Robert Crawley, Earl of Grantham.

It was Steve Nelson who suggested she write her own songs. But she hadn't been keen.

"I didn't want to expose myself in such a personal way," she says. But the following week when he turned up at her house she told him excitedly: "I've written three songs."

She draws her inspiration, she says, from the events of her everyday life.

"I think most people are inspired by what they do, and what's around them. That's what people write about," she says. "Because I wasn't starting out as an adolescent I looked around at how I had lived for the past 15 years. The kids I was raising. My husband. The rituals of being a suburban housewife.

"This was a hook that wasn't being addressed in new music. Young people write about the heartbreak of falling in love the first time. I thought maybe I should write about the middle years of life - nobody was writing about that - and see it as an asset: the kids growing up, being at the school gates, holding your marriage together."

Among her greatest fans are her daughters - though they were initially unimpressed by having a mother who was an actress and had now taken on the mantle of rock chick.

"There was a decade when like most kids they were embarrassed at anything I did. They just wanted me to stay home and be their mother," she said. "The music initially came into that category. I think they found the whole thing slightly excruciating." She wrinkles her nose to show their disgust.

"But the ultimate proudest professional moment of my life came at the Montreux Jazz Festival when Grace ran up afterwards and threw herself into my arms and said she was just so proud of me."

McGovern at an Emmy Awards Performers Nominee Reception in 2011.

"In the early stages I found songwriting came easily. But performing in front of people, I had to overcome a lot of fear. So I thought I could create a character for the singing. That's how Sadie was born. As the years have gone by she's morphed into the idea that whatever you have that's genuinely inside you is intrinsically interesting. If you honour that concept it's enough."

"The challenges are different," she adds. "I am used to so much rehearsal with acting and I always want to rehearse a lot with the band. But they're all professionals and we really don't rehearse that much."

Could she be tempted to forsake life as an actress for the raw world of rock'n'roll?

"The Devil laughs at those who make plans," she says with another laugh. "I try to keep my fantasies limited to dealing with challenges on a day-to-day basis."

What does she think her character Lady Grantham would make of it?

"I like to think she would think it was good fun," McGovern says, adding with a smile: "Though I'm sure [Dame Maggie Smith's] the Dowager would be far less inclined to approve."

SEPTEMBER 11, 2013

#Elizabeth McGovern #Downton Abbey #Sadie and the Hotheads #Interviews

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