Downton Abbey star Tom Branson tells: “Last time I was in LA I couldn’t get a dog to bark at me”

ALLEN Leech — a.k.a. Tom Branson from Downton Abbey — couldn’t get “a dog to bark” in LA before he got a role on the TV drama. Now he’s in-demand.

Downton challenge ... Allen Leech’s Branson is at a personal crossroads in Season 5. Picture: Supplied

ALLEN Leech — a.k.a. Tom Branson – Downton Abbey’s activist upstart chauffeur-turned widowed estate manager and single dad living with the elite class, says the last time he was in Los Angeles “I couldn’t get a dog to bark at me’.

Fast-forward a decade, and it’s January 2015, days after the Golden Globes, and Leech is doing double-duty on the publicity front — both for Downton and for feature film The Imitation Game, in which he stars alongside Benedict Cumberbatch, Keira Knightley.

People recognise him on the street. The affable Irishman is now an actor in demand.

141205 WISH L-R: Keira Knightley, Matthew Beard, Matthew Goode, Benedict Cumberbatch and Allen Leech in a scene from film The Imitation Game pic : supplied Picture: Captioned As

He’s enjoying his success, but keeping his mischievous humour.

“I’m loving LA,” he laughs.

“I love the buzz around the shows. And I love that it’s as they say — in the US they’ll cross the street to tell you how much they love you, and in the UK they cross the street to tell you they hate your show.”

One thing audiences aren’t hating is Downtown Abbey — the period drama which goes into its delayed-in-Australia fifth season a worldwide hit, with fans still keen for a hefty serve of the trials, tribulations and intrigue of the upstairs elite and downstairs people who serve them.

In season five, it’s the Roaring 20s, and change is in the air.

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24/01/2013 FEATURES: Sybil and Branson (Allen Leech and Jessica Brown Findlay SWITCHED ON COVER USE ONLY FOR FEB 20) Downton Abbey Pic. 7 Channel

For Leech’s Branson — originally cast for a three-episode arc in season one — then made scandalous series regular in the form of a poor activist chauffeur who stole the heart of the aristocratic Lady Sybil (Jessica Brown Findlay), then was left sideswiped by her death shortly after child birth, it’s a new dawn.

“Tom is trying to find out exactly who he is after all the turmoil what happened with his wife in season three, and then trying to get back on his feet and find a purpose in the estate and raise a child in season four,” says Leech.

“He is trying to truly understand where he wants to be and who he wants to be. Whether he can truly be the person he wants to be surrounded by all the memories of his past, of his life of a life of servitude before that as well and of never truly belonging.”

America beckons as a prospect, but Branson knows any moves to leave Downton will be met with opposition by the Crawleys – not only because of their love for his daughter, Sybbie, (Branson and she are their last link to their late daughter), but also because of a their genuine love for Tom, and the fact he has become integral to the running of the estate.

“It’s not just about Tom now. There is his daughter. And the thing is he does genuinely care for and love this family. It’s a very big decision,” Leech says.

“It’s not so much a lack of happiness. It’s more about achieving all he can in his life. And you know his journey took such a massive turn because he fell in love with this woman and now he finds himself without her still within that house, so now it’s about him making sure he can do right by the family as well as right by his daughter and himself.”

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Originally published as Downton Abbey star Tom Branson tells: “Last time I was in LA I couldn’t get a dog to bark at me”