15 Downton Abbey Secrets Revealed

11. Though Lady Edith Crawley would go on to develop into her breakout position, Laura Carmichael nearly did not attend her audition for the collection.

Because she was starring in a touring manufacturing of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, Carmichael admitted to Tribune News Service, “I thought it was going to be a ‘Yes, milord,’ a half-day’s filming, one line maybe. But it would be good to have on your CV that you’d done telly. And I thought, ‘I’m going to have to turn down this dream Shakespeare for this TV job. What a disaster!'”

12. In 2012, Gillian Anderson revealed she turned down the a part of Cora Crawley, with Elizabeth McGovern in the end taking part in Downton’s American heiress-turned-Countess of Grantham. 

13. Per Vanity Fair, Queen Elizabeth II was an enormous fan of the present and would fact-check it for enjoyable. “She loves to pick out the mistakes,” At Home with the Queen creator Brian Hoey claimed to People. Prince William additionally admitted to watching the collection, based on star Allan Leech.

“I shook his hand and he actually said, ‘I’m a big fan of the show, only now that my wife’s had a baby,'” he recalled on Watch What Happens Live in 2013. “Obviously he’s got a lot of down time, so [Kate]’s got him watching this. ‘You’re going to watch it with me!'”