‘Downton Abbey’ season 4: What Allen Leech has lined up next

Outside of it being a pretty amazing show, one of the benefits to being on “Downton Abbey” is that it does provide you with an opportunity to work on some other projects during the time off. Even though the show does take up a good half of the year, that leaves several months open to take on movies, other TV shows, or anything else that suits the actors’ fancy.

While you may know already that we are going to see Lily James in the title role in “Cinderella” during the show’s time off, we now know what one of the high-profile projects is going to be for the man behind Tom Branson in Allen Leech: “The Imitation Game.” This movie stars another British TV favorite in “Sherlock” star Benedict Cumberbatch, along with Kiera Knightley and Matthew Goode. Graham Moore has written the script, which revolves around Alan Turning (Cumberbatch), a British man who helps to crack the enigma code during World War II.

In a post on Twitter, Leech confirmed his own role in the project by sharing the following (rather humorous) message:

“Just to be clear I’m doing a movie called “The Imitation Game” about genius Alan Turing not “The Invitation Game” about genius party planner.”

We wonder if more broadcast networks are going to start adopting this strategy of shorter seasons to allow actors to do a larger variety of things. Just look at Fox and “The Following,” for example, or what NBC tried to do with “Smash.”

“Downton Abbey” season 4 is going to premiere on ITV next month, and we will have some more news on the return of the show soon. For now, just be sure to click here to see the first teaser featuring the voice of one Maggie Smith.

Photo: ITV