Downton Abbey star Matthew Goode has recalled a boozy day of filming on the ITV period drama that saw cast members go through 22 bottles of rosé wine.
Goode, 47, claimed that the late Dame Maggie Smith, who starred in Downton as the Dowager Countess of Grantham, had described the day as one that “might’ve been my favourite day on a set ever”.
The day in question involved a wedding scene, which was shot “very secretively” in an undisclosed countryside location (“I think in Oxford somewhere,” said Goode).
“Our green room for 20 actors was the garden of an ex-Concorde pilot,” Goode recounted to Deadline. “This is going to sound jolly unprofessional, and it is a bit unprofessional, but it’s f***ing funny.”
“[The pilot] came out with a bottle of rosé and just put it on the table, a bottle of Minuty, which was a nice Aix-en-Province rosé. And obviously all the other actors, they looked at it and they’re like, ‘No. Well, obviously we can’t do that.’”
Goode explained that he was “just a bit naughty” and decided to start drinking the wine on set.
“It was really hot, and it was looking at me and the perspiration was rolling down the bottle and I said, ‘I’ll have a glass, thank you so much’,” he recalled. “ And I sat and I quaffed it bloody quickly. And I said, ‘Is it OK if I have another one?’
“And then you started to see all the other actors, particularly the ones that didn’t have any lines that day, just a big ensemble piece, none of us had that much to do, really. So we all started drinking. We went through 22 bottles of rosé.”
He adds that no one was “drunk, but my God, were we merry. And if you’ve made Maggie Smith happy, then it can’t be wrong.”
Smith died last year at the age of 89. Her death prompted an outpouring of fondness and praise from across the film and TV industry.
Watch Apple TV+ free for 7 day
New subscribers only. £8.99/mo. after free trial. Plan auto-renews until cancelled.
Try for free
ADVERTISEMENT. If you sign up to this service we will earn commission. This revenue helps to fund journalism across The Independent.
Watch Apple TV+ free for 7 day
New subscribers only. £8.99/mo. after free trial. Plan auto-renews until cancelled.
Try for free
ADVERTISEMENT. If you sign up to this service we will earn commission. This revenue helps to fund journalism across The Independent.
Goode recently starred in the Netflix series Dept Q, created by The Queen’s Gambit’s Scott Frank. He will not, however, be returning to Downton for the forthcoming movie sequel, Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale, in cinemas later this year.
“I was unavailable for the second [film] because I was doing The Offer. [For the third], I was shooting [Dept Q],” he told Radio Times. “But I also buggered my knee, and I had to have an operation.
“That takes weeks to get over, so I was never going to be able to do it. And let’s face it, [my character] was edging towards becoming a bit of a wet lettuce. So maybe it’s a good thing.”
