Actress Lily James is equally enthusiastic. She was in a cafe when she found out the part of Lady Rose would be returning for the new series: ‘I somehow managed to spill my drink I was so excited,’ she smiles.

‘At first, it was scary to be joining a show that is so brilliant and wonderful and that everyone loves. But within the fi rst episode, I began to feel a part of it. Everyone is so generous and warm.’

Twenty-four-year-old Lily has particularly valued the friendship of Michelle Dockery, who plays Lady Mary. ‘I don’t know what I would have done without her. We went to the same drama school and she has been giving me lots of help and advice. She is great at keeping a sense of humour about it all.’

(…) His admiration is shared by Lily James. ‘I think Dame Maggie is one of the greatest actresses ever. To be with her on set, watching her, is a gift for any young actress.’

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(Click to watch the video interview)

Downton Abbey star Lily James has revealed Lady Rose is about to shake things up at the estate and help the Crawley family gradually come out of mourning for Matthew as they move on with their lives.

The young aristocrat has recently come to stay with the family and wants to use the opportunity to really let her hair down. But she might find that’s a little tricky at first…

“Rose is a bit of a rule breaker, I think she’s quite angry. She’s been restrained and had all these rules since she was a tiny girl, and she just wants to live life and behave in a way she’s seeing other girls do,” Lily explained in an exclusive interview with stv.tv.

“There was this move of the flapper and partying and she wants to follow suit but in the wrong environment.”

The young star continued: “Rose is so happy to escape Scotland, but obviously she’s come into a house that’s in mourning, and it’s really sad. Rose really had a soft spot for Matthew Crawley, she felt an alliance with him. So all of them are affected. The feeling is weighted and miserable.”
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Downton Abbey’s Lily James thinks brunettes have more fun.

The 24-year-old actress plays Lady Rose MacClare in the popular period drama.

For the role, Lily even changed her naturally brown hair to blonde.

It’s a decision she wasn’t entirely comfortable with and she knows exactly which color she prefers.

“Brunettes have more fun!” she assured British magazine OK!

Starring alongside Dame Maggie Smith and Michelle Dockery, Lily wears some amazing clothes on the show.

Just like her hair, the costumes took some getting used to.

“To be honest, I didn’t like the style of the ’20s at first,” she admitted.

“I thought it was boyish and that it suited a skinny frame and I have curves. Also I’m a brunette and I’ve gone blonde for the show, so I’ve changed a lot.”

Caroline McCall is currently the costume designer for Downton Abbey, following in the footsteps of Susannah Buxton and Rosalind Ebbutt.

She’s won an Emmy for her work on the show and Lily can see why.

“The costume designer is a genius. Sometimes I have five pairs of tights on to get the right color,” she marveled.

Many of the show’s scenes include a sumptuous dinner table.

While the lavish feast might look great, it wreaks havoc on the cast’s waistline.

“The food’s so good and when you start a scene you think, ‘OK, I’ll eat this sausage,’ and then you have to repeat that for the rest of the day. Your diet’s ruined and every mouthful’s torture!” Lily laughed.

(Source)

Lily James has confessed she still has to remind herself that her role in Downton Abbey is not a dream.

The 24-year-old actress plays naughty cousin Lady Rose in the ITV drama, who is sent to live at Downton Abbey in the new series so the Countess of Grantham (Maggie Smith) can keep an eye on her.

Lily said: “I still feel a bit like, ‘Am I really in this show?’ It’s such a HUGE thing and it’s so great and it’s just a brilliant drama.

“I watched it, and to be in it and a part of the whole series is absolutely wonderful, and it’s been a great opportunity for me because I’m just starting out.

“It’s not my first job, but Downton feels like your first job, because it’s so huge it’s like nothing else mattered before!”

The new series sees the house in mourning after the death of Matthew Crawley, but Lily promised Lady Rose will bring some fun to Downton.

She revealed: “It’s very sombre and sad because Matthew’s died, so she’s trying to behave and fit and then as the series progresses, she’s trying to have fun and live life to the full.

“She’s like a flapper, that wave of passion and dancing and drinking.”

(Source)

New interview and photoshoot for Lily, alongside her ‘Downton Abbey’ co-stars Sophie McShera and Cara Theobold.

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Studio Photoshoots > Outtakes & Sessions > Session 025

Lady Rose MacClare is the headstrong great-niece of the Dowager Countess, played by Dame Maggie Smith. In the last series we saw her banished to Scotland in disgrace after she embarked on an affair with a married man and was caught in flagrante with him at the notoriously louche Blue Dragon nightclub.

Actress Lily James admits that – like Lady Rose – she is often driven by the heart rather than the head and can be impulsive. ‘A friend once asked me to cat-sit while she was on holiday,’ says Lily, 24, ‘and I fell in love with her cat so much that the day after she collected it, I drove to Essex and bought myself a beautiful black and white kitten, Coco, which was entirely mad as I was away a lot and living a ridiculous nomadic existence. She’s been staying at my mum’s but I’m about to move into a flatshare in South London, so we can be reunited.’

Lady Rose is drawn to adventure like a moth to a flame, so her return south of the border is bound to create a stir. ‘She’s a very strong-willed character. Like a coiled spring waiting to be released, she is desperate to rebel against the strictures of her upbringing.’

Not so Lily, whose grandmother Helen Horton was an actress with roles in films including Alien and Superman 3. Her father, who died in 2000, was also in the business and wrote music and plays. ‘They were both a huge inspiration, and although neither of my two brothers were interested in an acting career, I went to the Guildhall School of Music & Drama and loved it.’
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Another interview of our lovely Lily with RadioTimes this time. Lily talks mischief, drinking tea with Maggie Smith and being inspired by Downton Abbey fashion.

“Maggie Smith’s just been one of my idols growing up… so now to be sitting drinking tea with her is slightly bizarre!”

Lily James plays Lady Rose, Downton Abbey’s new resident trouble maker. Before the drama returns to ITV, we sat down with the 24-year-old rising star to find out what’s in store for her in series four…

What was it like to join the cast after almost three series?
It was really overwhelming at the start of the series. I’ve loved the show. But everyone was really welcoming and really encouraging and really warm. Especially this year, I feel totally a part of it now. And it didn’t take long. My first day was like the first day of school, I was like ‘Like me! Like me!’

Can we expect mischief from Rose in the next series?
She wants to shake up her own life, so I guess that has an impact on the household. She puts herself in positions that are really inappriopriate and searches for fun in places that weren’t allowed at that time for young girls.

She’s risking her position and she’s risking being with the family and Downton, which she loves, so when she does try and have fun she has to try and rein it in.

Does this fun have anything to do with a certain jazz musician…?
Ah. [laughs] You’ll have to wait and see.

Okay, we won’t talk plot spoilers, but did you have an idea of where you wanted Rose to go in series four?
All actors want to sort of show a rounded character… so I was hoping that you’d see lots of different sides to Rose. You know, obviously, she’s the party girl and she’s sort of seeking an adrenaline rush, seeking excitement, but there is also lots of other stuff going on so that’s what I was hoping you’d see.
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ITV has released their Press Pack for Season 4 of ‘Downton Abbey’. Here is an interview with Lily:

Lady Rose MacClare (Lily James)
The young and spirited daughter of Violet’s niece, the Marchioness of Flintshire. With the twenties now beginning to roar, Rose’s attraction to the bright lights of the city stands little chance of abating and, as she starts to explore the new world only recently opened to the post-war generation, the threat to the Crawleys’ social standing is ever present.

Downton’s newest arrival above stairs is Lady Rose MacClare, the Dowager Countess’ great niece whom we first met at the end of series three. Now that her parents have moved to India she has been taken under Cora’s wing.

“She has come to live at ‘Downton’ with the Crawley family and so I think she is grateful to have been taken in by them,” says James. “It gets her away from the thought of her horrid mother in India. So at the start she is on her best behaviour. She may be a bit of a troublemaker but she doesn’t want to cause trouble at the beginning.”

Naturally, trouble soon follows.
“I don’t think she really fits in that well!” laughs James. “She is different from other girls in that she doesn’t want to behave. She feels a bit on edge a lot of the time and Edith is quite nasty to her too.”

Yet at a time when Downton is suffused with gloom, Rose is also a breath of fresh air.

“Yes, she definitely brings a bit of light to the place. At the start of the series because of Matthew’s death there is a real weight and dejection to everything. I think that is also why Rose is trying to tow the line because you have got to be sensitive in those sorts of situations. But she does try and encourage a bit of life and music around the place – she is obsessed with music and dancing. And I think that the house needs that actually.”
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