‘Downton Abbey’ season 3: New videos featuring Joanne Froggatt, Hugh Bonneville

Before taking back to Britain to promote (and hopefully watch) their Christmas special, the cast of “Downton Abbey” season 3 all had an opportunity this past week to help promote the upcoming third season on PBS (premiering on January 6) on Anderson Cooper’s “Anderson Live!” talk show. What unfolded as a result was a rather lovely combination of humor, heart, and information about the show that so many of us love.

We’ll begin here with a video that was all about accent work, as Joanne Froggatt revealed a rather interesting surprise: even though she and many of the other cast members are from the north, they still had to attend classes in order to improve their period northern accent for the show. As for Elizabeth McGovern, however, she said that being an American gave her a far more difficult challenge (and resulted in her being treated rather differently than the rest of the gang).

As for the downstairs crew, this video shows us that Jim Carter and most of the servants unfortunately do not get many opportunities at all to film with most of the upstairs cast, largely since they have to film their scenes at a studio. Why? The servants’ quarters at Highclere Castle have been modernized, and are thus not really suitable for their show.

There’s not too much insight from the final video, but it is pretty hilarious to see Rob James-Collier go at it with a fan over whether or not Bates is a better footman than Thomas is.

If you want to read even more scoop on the “Downton Abbey” Christmas special (with a warning for spoilers for those of you reading in America), you can do so by heading on over to the link here.

Photo: ITV