"It's just me"
Maggie Smith gave very few interviews over the course of her career, but she did agree to talk to Julian Fellowes for RT in 2010 before the first series of Downton Abbey aired. Below is an extract...
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JULIAN FELLOWES You find Violet’s character wonderfully, right from the beginning. The reason I write these parts for you is that some actors, as they get on, start to get sentimental. You have this gift of being able to play great emotion without sentimentalising it.
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MAGGIE SMITH I think that is just me, not the way that I am acting — that is my personality.
JF But you don’t seem, as a performer, to have that thing of wanting to be liked, which is incredibly freeing. Are you aware of that?
MS No, I think it is because I very rarely play parts in which I might be liked. I am always cast as these rather mean old bags.
JF I don’t think you are unlikeable in any of your roles. You could say Lady Trentham is an old bully, but she’s everyone’s favourite character in Gosford Park.
I'm deeply grateful for Harry Potter
Maggie Smith
MS I know what you mean, but I think whatever you do you’re put in a pigeonhole.
JF Bette Davis said that the actor who isn’t typecast doesn’t work and there is something in that. I don’t think there are as many actresses in demand as you are.
MS Joan Plowright once said to me, “There are so few parts around nowadays and Judi Dench has got her paws on them before anybody else can get to them.”
JF I think everyone else would say Judi, Maggie and Joan have got their paws on them. If you are an older actress it’s a complete nightmare, and the mere fact that regular work keeps coming in does make you one of the lucky ones.
MS That is very true. I know I am lucky. I’m also deeply grateful for Harry Potter.
JF Do you enjoy the Harry Potter phenomenon?
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MS I do so little in it that I got to the point of thinking they could make do with just the hat.
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