\n<\/p>\n
F<\/span>or the maudlin among us, the final Downton Abbey film should perhaps come with a warning. Everything in it is tinged with wistfulness \u2013<\/strong> a goodbye to cherished characters and a farewell to a stately home that was a sturdy presence in a transient world. <\/strong>When the ITV series started in 2010, wasn\u2019t life \u2026 better? Did Elizabeth McGovern feel this too, the sense of time passing? After all, her character, Cora, is now ageing out of custodianship of Downton along with her husband, Lord Grantham, in favour of a younger generation and a changing era as the 1930s dawn.<\/p>\n \u201cNo!\u201d says McGovern, snapping me out of my melancholy. \u201cI feel very excited that I\u2019m going into a gratifying new phase in my career.\u201d As well as reviving Cora, there is the play she has written, Ava: The Secret Conversations. Starring McGovern as Hollywood actor Ava Gardner, it will run in New York, Chicago and Toronto, having made its debut in London in 2022. There is also a new album of her folk-inspired music. \u201cI feel like I\u2019m just beginning,\u201d she declares as we meet at her publicist\u2019s London office. At first glance, McGovern, fine-boned and composed, seems delicate \u2013 but if you only go on first impressions, you\u2019ll miss her rebellious spirit.<\/p>\n I was never desperate. I could walk away. A lot of young women weren\u2019t so lucky<\/p>\n Not that making Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale wasn\u2019t emotional. \u201cYou don\u2019t have to work very hard, as a film-maker, to touch on that depth, because we\u2019ve been working on it for so many years,\u201d she says. McGovern worried that the absence of Maggie Smith \u2013 who died last year after giving the show the brilliantly scathing Dowager Countess \u2013 would feel like too big a loss to the Downton world. But she says Smith\u2019s presence \u201cpermeates\u201d it. \u201cShe\u2019s still very much in the atmosphere. I don\u2019t feel there\u2019s a big hole. In fact, in some ways, it sort of freed up the rest of the narrative to have a flow, because it\u2019s not stopping for her moments. But everything she represents is there. She\u2019s in every room, in every interaction, so it\u2019s not like she\u2019s not there. It\u2019s a weird thing.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/span>Heroine heiress \u2026 as Cora (centre) in The Grand Finale. <\/span> Photograph: Rory Mulvey\/Focus Features<\/p>\n The women of Downton, whether the steely Lady Mary or spirited young cook Daisy, are gratifyingly tough, but Cora, usually quietly supportive in the background, never seemed that robust, even though it was her money \u2013 as an American heiress \u2013 that was running everything. Was that difficult to play? \u201cAt times, yes,\u201d says McGovern. \u201cI think as a contemporary woman, it is hard to feel the straitjacket of that period.\u201d Did she ever fight for Cora to have more agency? \u201cI wish at times she could have had more interesting stories,\u201d says McGovern, but adds that it wouldn\u2019t have been appropriate for her to have had \u201cany more political or social power, because it just wouldn\u2019t be accurate to the time\u201d.<\/p>\n Cora, though, is a vision of an exciting America; the daughter of a Jewish immigrant installed at Downton with her bags of new money and her progressive outlook. Were Downton set now, instead of Cora coming here to shake up Britain\u2019s class-ridden ways, she would be a wealthy liberal refugee, a bit like Ellen DeGeneres, fleeing Trump\u2019s America. McGovern, who grew up in California, has lived in the UK for the past 32 years. She is shocked and disappointed at modern US politics.<\/p>\n \u201cI mean,\u201d she says, \u201cit\u2019s a reality that must have been bubbling away under what I thought was America. It can\u2019t have come from nowhere.\u201d But, describing herself as a positive person, she adds: \u201cI think it will be painful, but we have too much successful history as a free country for us to let it go. It\u2019s all of our responsibility to peacefully make sure we hold on to everything that I was confident \u2013 and complacent about \u2013 that America represented.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/span>Big time \u2026 with Robert De Niro in Once Upon a Time in America. <\/span> Photograph: Everett Collection\/Alamy<\/p>\n McGovern had huge success early on. Her debut was in Robert Redford\u2019s 1980 film Ordinary People, and she won an Oscar nomination for her role in her second film, Ragtime. This was followed by a part in Sergio Leone\u2019s Once Upon a Time in America, opposite Robert de Niro. \u201cI think I did feel like, \u2018Gosh, this isn\u2019t as hard as people say.\u2019\u201d She smiles. \u201cUntil I later experienced how difficult it is. My experience early on was just trying to keep my head on straight, do job after job, and do what most people are doing at that age \u2013 try to grow up. I only realised later how difficult it is to sustain a career.\u201d<\/p>\n Hers wasn\u2019t a showbiz family: her parents were teachers. And although she has loved acting since she was a child, it was never about becoming a star. As a young woman in an often dangerous industry, this probably protected her. \u201cI was never desperate, so I could always just walk away. A lot of young women didn\u2019t feel they could. I think I was very lucky.\u201d<\/p>\n It also made her see the downsides of fame. \u201cI think I did manage to avoid it myself, but the price you pay for fame is that it becomes really hard to have any relationships of intimacy, because you are collateral. Your whole being has sort of been sold, and that creates a tension about what people want from you.\u201d<\/p>\n A lot of McGovern\u2019s early roles were as the girlfriend to the male lead. Then, she says: \u201cI went from being the girlfriend to the perfect wife, and that I found frustrating. Most movies, television \u2013 it\u2019s always the man\u2019s point of view. It\u2019s such a deep, subliminal thing that audiences are not even aware of it. I wasn\u2019t even particularly aware of it. I knew my job early on was to fulfil a man\u2019s fantasy of the woman they wanted. It never occurred to me to even question it.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/span>\u2018I\u2019ve done my own thing\u2019 \u2026 with Brad Pitt as her boyfriend in The Favor; now she thinks she would be cast as his mother.<\/span> Photograph: Orion Pictures\/Allstar<\/p>\n Brad Pitt played McGovern\u2019s boyfriend in the 1994 comedy The Favor. We joke \u2013 bitterly \u2013 that were she to be in a film with him now, she would probably be cast as his mother. This says a lot about what\u2019s still considered desirable in a woman even though, at 64, McGovern is only three years Pitt\u2019s senior. \u201cI really don\u2019t think that, just because society is viewing something that way, we have to. I try to have this discussion with my daughters. We can have a feeling independent of the consensus in society. I\u2019ve just done my own thing and just kept doing it.\u201d<\/p>\n She bristles, not unreasonably, when I point out that her embracing her silver hair seems rare in her business. Was that a political decision? \u201cNot really. But once again, I feel like a woman my age \u2013 that\u2019s what we\u2019re asked to talk about. I regret that about society.\u201d<\/p>\n There is something bracing about the way McGovern carves her own path. She left Hollywood and moved to London to start a family; she has two grownup daughters with her husband, the film-maker and producer Simon Curtis (who directed The Grand Finale). Approaching her 40s, she started a band, Sadie and the Hotheads, and started releasing music. \u201cI have to remind myself,\u201d she says, \u201cthat people will either like it or they won\u2019t \u2013 and whatever they feel is fine with me. It\u2019s about doing it.\u201d<\/p>\n In her 50s, she wrote her play about Gardner, drawn to the actor\u2019s independent spirit. Now in her 60s, she is writing a screenplay, although she won\u2019t say what it\u2019s about. \u201cIt\u2019s my next obsession. I really want to write stuff. I\u2019m really excited about that.\u201d Doing so is partly a way to create interesting work for herself as an older actor. There has certainly been plenty of talk about this \u2013 does she think the situation has improved? \u201cNot that I\u2019ve noticed.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/span>Independent spirit \u2026 with Aaron Costa Ganis in Ava: The Secret Conversations in New York.<\/span> Photograph: Jeff Lorch\/AP<\/p>\n She loved the recent show Dying for Sex, in which Michelle Williams plays a terminally ill woman in her 40s who embarks on a last attempt at sexual exploration. \u201cIt\u2019s such a female story. I found that to be really encouraging, but it\u2019s not going to be about someone my age.\u201d Why? Is it because society considers the thought of older women having a sex life shocking? \u201cI think possibly, yes. I mean, what can we do as women, except just keep going and not buy into it? We have no other choice.\u201d<\/p>\n If it takes a bit of effort, the pay-off is surely worth it \u2013 if McGovern and her outlook are anything to go by. \u201cIt\u2019s a daily exercise in getting your head tuned into the right thing. It\u2019s not that I blame anyone for accepting the status quo, but it doesn\u2019t mean I have to. No way.\u201d She laughs. \u201cNo way.\u201d<\/p>\n Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale is out on 11 September in Australia, and 12 September in the UK and US. Ava: The Secret Conversations is at New York City Center until 14 September.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" For the maudlin among us, the final Downton Abbey film should perhaps come with a warning. Everything in it is tinged with wistfulness \u2013 a goodbye to cherished characters and a farewell to a stately home that was a sturdy presence in a transient world. When the ITV series started in 2010, wasn\u2019t life \u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15711,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[244,9239,9238,442,9236,3964,1189,9235,779,591,5517,9237,1394,245],"class_list":{"0":"post-15710","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-brad","9":"tag-costarring","10":"tag-downton","11":"tag-early","12":"tag-elizabeth","13":"tag-fame","14":"tag-fantasy","15":"tag-fulfil","16":"tag-job","17":"tag-knew","18":"tag-mans","19":"tag-mcgovern","20":"tag-movies","21":"tag-pitt"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15710","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15710"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15710\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/15711"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15710"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15710"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15710"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}