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Paul Giamatti Reflects On ‘Downton Abbey 3’ Honoring Maggie Smith: “Acting In Her Spirit”

Paul Giamatti recently opened up about the production of Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale in the wake of Maggie Smith's death.

Speaking to People ahead of his forthcoming Black Mirror episode this week, the two-time Oscar nominee opened up about reprising his role from the wildly popular mothership show, in which he appeared during the Season 4 Christmas special as Cora’s (Elizabeth McGovern) brother Harold Levinson. Joining Giamatti are new additions Joely Richardson, Alessandro Nivola, Simon Russell Beale and Arty Froushan, as well as cast mainstays McGovern, Michelle Dockery, Laura Carmichael, Jim Carter, Phyllis Logan, Robert James-Collier, Joanne Froggatt, Allen Leech, Penelope Wilton, Lesley Nicol, Michael Fox, Raquel Cassidy, Brendan Coyle, Kevin Doyle, Harry Hadden-Paton, Sophie McShera and Douglas Reith. But I also see actors mourning the matriarch of the show, and it feels more genuine and more meaningful.” (Smith’s character — Violet Crawley, the Dowager Countess of Grantham, for which she received three Emmy Awards — died in 2022’s Downton Abbey: A New Era.)

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