‘Downton Abbey’ season 5: Julian Fellows on spoilers, Twitter, and trouble
Is it really that big of a deal that Richard E. Grant recently posted a photo of himself as his “Downton Abbey” character on Twitter? Personally, we don’t really believe so. It was already well-known that he was playing a wealthy member of the upper class, and it’s not exactly like the image gave anything away on stories that could be coming up ahead.
However, it apparently seems that someone doesn’t want to see the show go down a slippery slope when it comes to social media. Show creator Julian Fellowes is not someone who likes to give away anything about his series in advance save for maybe a list of guest stars, and in speaking about this particular photo (which you can see here) per the Telegraph while ironically at the launch of Grant’s fragrance, he had the following to say:
“He’s very naughty. The trouble we’ve had with things like Twitter … We had to explain to the cast about the dangers of tweeting as no one realised how interested everybody was in the show. You’re in a bubble when you’re filming … You’re just tweeting these nice things and you don’t realise there are millions of people worldwide trying to pick up the plot.”
As we hinted, we feel like Fellowes’ comments are more of a means to curtail future sticky situations than they are anything that Grant did this time around. The real problem that he likely wants to avoid is random people off the street deciding that it’s a good idea to hover around Highclere Castle with cell phones, snapping photos of whatever they see. This is not a show where you can rely on much else other than the dialogue and the character interactions; it’s not like you can sell the product with flashy dragons, battle scenes, or any other special effects.
“Downton Abbey” premieres on ITV this fall, and PBS again in January. If you want to get some more news from us at CarterMatt sent right to your email, then be sure to sign up now for our CarterMatt Newsletter.
Photo: ITV