For the past six seasons, countless fans have grown invested in the lives of the Crawley family and their staff from "Downton Abbey," and so the characters' joys and pains have become their own.
Before the Christmas special of the sixth season airs, fans have witnessed Lady Mary happily married to race car driver Henry Talbot while her sister Lady Edith was left heartbroken because of her secret daughter. Anna and Mr. Bates are happily expecting a child while Thomas is recovering from his attempted suicide.
While fans are hoping that everybody will get a happy ending before the show wraps up, executive producer Gareth Neame said that this will not be the case.
"We started at the real high point of this way of life. ... Now we're covering this period of decline," Neame told Entertainment Weekly. "We're seeing the end of an era, and servants no longer wanting to be servants, because there were other jobs."
"Some will have good outcomes, and some won't," Neame teased. "But we'll leave them where they are in that place and time."
The cast of the show did not elaborate further on any spoilers, but they were nonetheless happy to discuss the last few days they had on the set.
Everybody cannot help but rave about Dame Maggie Smith, and they said that being in her presence made them challenge their own work.
Hugh Bonneville, who portrays Lord Grantham in the series shared, "She expects high standards. You always knew you had to be at the top of your game whenever she was on set. Also, she was very good at Bananagrams."
As for Michelle Dockery, who played his daughter Lady Mary, she feels like she has worked with the cream of the crop already because of Smith. "There's a part of me that thinks I'm done now. I've worked with Maggie Smith for six years," she said.
Allen Leech, who plays her brother in law Tom Branson especially loves it when Smith cracks jokes.
"Everyone enjoys her performances and watching her because she has so much fun doing it. But she also is so honest. 'Oh my gosh, I just caught myself old-woman acting. I mean, why am I doing that?'" he laughingly shared.
Leech added that he tried getting a memento from the set, but he ended up keeping a letter that held no real sentiment to his character.
"I had the opportunity to take a letter that Branson had been written, but it was from the pig farmer. I don't hold a great sense of sentimentality in my mind for the pig farmer, so I chose not to," he shared.
