Amy Nuttall and Allen Leech, who play Ethel and Branson, tell us as much as they can about the new Downton Abbey series.

Look away now if you’re hoping to be entirely surprised when the third series of Downton Abbey starts later this year, although how you’ve managed to avoid any spoilers so far, we don’t know.

When we said ‘everything you need to know’ about Downton Abbey, we actually meant ‘everything the cast could possibly tell us’ about the ITV1 period drama, with stars Amy Nuttall and Allen Leech giving us as much gossip as they could at yesterday’s Tric Awards.

You’ll be pleased to know that the legendary Maggie Smith WILL be a part of the third Downton series, with fears over her contract being resolved and the actress already filming scenes on the set.

Allen, who plays driver Branson on the show, told us: “I was sitting around the dining room table with Maggie three days ago, so she’s definitely in it. If not, the girl playing her is brilliant!”

Amy, who plays maid Ethel, added: “She’s filming at the moment, so don’t believe the rumours. That’s why she’s not here.”

Watch our interview with the Downton stars at yesterday’s Tric Awards HERE.

The pair – who said they still can’t believe how popular the programme is – also explained how series three will work, in terms of time.

Amy said: “It’s set in 1920 and there’s not going to be huge time jumps like the last series.”

Allen added: “It’s over the pace of 18 months, so more like season one. World War One had to be done in season two and there were time jumps. A lot of people didn’t like that, but its getting back to what it was.”

And it sounds like Branson could have a new love interest in the series, if Allen’s swooning about American actress Shirley MacLaine is anything to go by.

The screen icon has joined the show to play Martha Levinson (mother to Cora the Countess of Grantham) and it sounds like she’s getting on well with the cast.

Allen told us: “Shirley MacLaine has arrived, she’s amazing. A brilliant Hollywood legend.”

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For TIME Style & Design’s fashion shoot with British actors Tom Hiddleston and Michelle Dockery, photographer Jonathan de Villiers got to work on the roof of what is the tallest hospital in the world, Guy’s Hospital in London. And that wasn’t the only superlative in play: “This is, dare I say it, one of the best periods for British fashion,” says de Villiers. “There’s a whole crop of new young designers.”

You can read the full articole HERE

Images from the photoshoot have been added to the gallery:

Photoshoots > Michelle Dockery > Set 12 [+6]

And here a behind the scenes video from the shoot :)

Oscar-winning writer and Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes has been lined up to adapt the memoir, Gypsy, for the big screen.

The Hollywood Reporter said Barbra Streisand and Joel Silver will produce the project.

The memoir, written by burlesque dancer Gypsy Rose Lee in 1957, documented the relationship she had with her pushy mother Momma Rose.

Read more HERE.

Rob James-Collier has said that working on Downton Abbey is the best job that he has ever had.

The former Coronation Street star, who plays Thomas on the ITV1 period drama, described being a part of the multi award-winning show as “amazing”.

James-Collier told reporters at a press screening of his new drama Love Life: “I absolutely love doing Downton now – it’s the best job I’ve ever done. The cast are amazing and they’re beautiful people to work with and the directors we work with are the best people they’ve got and we’re making television that – the first series in particular – matches anywhere in the world. So to be part of that is amazing but to think four, five, six years down the line… I love it now and I take it a season at a time. I love it and if they wanted me back obviously I’d say yes, I’m thrilled – but any further than season 12, I can’t look that far ahead!”

James-Collier also revealed that his character was only meant to be on the show for one series.

“When they started, my character wasn’t even supposed to be in series two and three,” he explained. “He was going to get sacked I think, because that’s what I was told at the audition – ‘It’s a great part, he’s a really nasty piece and he gets his comeuppance, but the only bad thing is that he gets sacked at the end’. But then after filming the first two episodes, the producers rang up my agent and said, ‘Would he consider being optioned for series two and three?’ And that just came out of the blue – it’s a no-brainer. So here I am – I could have been killed off a million times. I haven’t. But I could get killed off at the end of series three, you never know. So that’s why I don’t think too far ahead.”

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Added some more TRIC Awards images (thanks to my dear Mariana) of Amy and Allen before the show :)

Public Appearance > 2012 > TRIC Awards – Before the show [+11]

Added some new season 2 Behind the Scenes pictures, from the EW set :) enjoy them!

Season 2 > Behind the Scenes [+12]

Some members of the cast yesterday attended The Television and Radio Industries Club Awards. The show also won the award for HD Drama Programme of the Year. Congratulations!

Public Appearance > 2012 > TRIC Awards – Arrivals [+23]
Public Appearance > 2012 > TRIC Awards – Inside Arrivals [+4]
Public Appearance > 2012 > TRIC Awards – Ceremony [+1]
Public Appearance > 2012 > TRIC Awards – Winners [+2]

David’s Book Talk interviewd Jessica Fellowes, the author of the book The World of Downton Abbey. You can listen the audio interview on his site or you can download it clicking on the image :)

Download the Audio Interview

As “Downton Abbey” star Maggie Smith debates whether she’ll sign on for seasons four and five of the series (season three is now in production), fans aren’t the only ones thinking about how disappointed they would be if there was no more Dowager Countess offering up pithy commentary on the Grantham grounds. Julian Fellowes, the creator and writer behind the show, told TODAY.com that if she leaves, “it will be a black day.”

“Maggie is very useful for a writer,” said the actor-turned-writer and Oscar winner (for “Gosford Park”). “She’s very funny, and she has the capacity as an actress to have a real emotional story or scene — and then in the next five minutes to be hilarious, and yet always playing the same woman. A less-skilled actress would become a different person each time, but Maggie synthesizes it into one character.”

There’s another advantage an actress of her skill and years brings to the table: She doesn’t have to be liked. “She’s freed from that desire, which gives you such latitude — and that means they adore her all the more,” said Fellowes.

He knows they have a gem in Smith, but keeps a stiff upper lip about the situation.

“I can’t pretend it won’t be a knife in my heart when she decides to move on,” said Fellowes. “But in dramatic life as in anything else, you just have to get on with it, really. If she leaves and they want the show to continue, we will have to carry on. But I will be very sorry.”

Fellowes is currently in Italy, where his script for “Romeo and Juliet” is being shot. But fans of “Downton” might also be pleased to know that his upstairs/downstairs writing interests are carrying over to the “Titanic” mini-series he’s made for ITV (in Britain) and ABC (in the U.S.) The series is set to premiere on April 14 at 8 p.m. ET and then conclude the next night at 9 p.m. “It’s all these interlocking stories all over the ship — the officers, the stewards and stewardesses, the first class passengers — so the idea being that you have a sense of life on board this ship,” he said.

The question for “Downton” fans, though, is this: Will a particular heir of Grantham who went down with the ship make an appearance? Laughed Fellowes, “I was tempted to have someone say, ‘Do you know Patrick Crawley?’ But that … well, that would be a bit too kitsch.”

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Rob James-Collier says surviving in the acting business is still a “struggle” – even now he’s got through the door.

The Downton Abbey and former Coronation Street star studied for degrees in business and marketing before realising his true vocation.

He took up acting classes and pursued his dream, even though people kept “slamming doors” in his face, until getting his big break in 2006 as brooding Liam Connor in Corrie.

But Rob, 35, who stars in new ITV comedy drama Love Life, said of the industry: “It’s a massive struggle and it still is once you get in.

“You’re only as good as your last job and sometimes you can do very well, but it’s so competitive out there that it will always be peaks and troughs.”

He said: “Marketing was kind of my chosen career path, but I think I just did it because I was reasonably intelligent at school and my mum and dad had funded me through university, which was very kind of them.”

Rob, who played footman Thomas in Downton, said of his degree: “I realised very quickly it wasn’t what I wanted to do, so I was kind of just pottering along and then this student film thing came out of a moment of pure chance. For the first time ever it was very clear to me, ‘Wow, what if I could do this and make a living out of it?’.”

:: Love Life starts on ITV1 on Thursday, March 15.
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