Downton Abbey star Elizabeth McGovern reveals the ‘excruciating’ experience of making her new film

Elizabeth McGovern has opened up about the “excruciating” experience surround her new film project and spills on Downton Abbey movie doubts.

Elizabeth McGovern feels like she’s in the middle of giving birth at the moment.

For several weeks, the actress — best known for her role as Lady Grantham in the multi award-winning series Downton Abbey — has been on a global tour promoting her latest film project.

And it has been quite the arduous journey in a number of ways.

The Chaperone is a coming-of-age story about Louise Brooks (Haley Lu Richardson), a talented young performer from rural America who travels to New York to attend a prestigious dance school, accompanied by a family acquaintance, the seemingly ordinary Norma (McGovern).

Brooks was a real-life megastar of Hollywood’s silent era — a flapper icon and sex symbol who made the sharp bob hairstyle all the rage in the 1920s and 30s.

When she was 15, the precocious and envelope-pushing youngster was indeed chaperoned on her life-changing trip to Manhattan at a time of enormous cultural change.

McGovern came across the novel that the film is based on after being asked to voice the audio book, and promptly bought the rights and fought for years to have it made.

“It’s such a great story and I completely fell in love with it,” she says.

Brooks wows at the dance school and is snapped up, destined to have her name set in lights, while “seemingly ordinary Norma” also undergoes an internal revolution of her own, McGovern says.

Downton Abbey star Elizabeth McGovern in Sydney to promote her latest film The Chaperone. Picture: Darren Leigh Roberts

Haley Lu Richardson and Elizabeth McGovern star in The Chaperone.

Sitting in a sun-drenched room at a very fancy hotel on Sydney Harbour, it’s barely 24 hours since the Academy Award-nominated star touched down in Australia, straight from the US leg of the promotional tour.

It did not go well and McGovern says her “head is totally mush”.

“Every time I’ve sat with an audience to watch it, I’ve felt this sense that they’re really with it and the story is connecting. But in America, the critics… there have been a lot of critics who haven’t (responded) like I was expecting.

“I was expecting it only because of my experience of sitting with audiences. A lot of the critics have just gone … I don’t know, not at all the way audiences have.

“I don’t know what it is anymore. I have no idea.”

The Chaperone — a lovely tale about two women separated by age, outlook, background and innocence who bond over their separate experiences of change while in New York, releases nationally tomorrow — feels different to anything else McGovern has done.

She made a significant emotional investment in the project, she says, and there’s a lot of herself in it.

“I think that’s why I feel more vulnerable than I normally do,” McGovern says, before laughing lightly and adding: “It was my idea and I have only myself to blame.”

Louise Brooks, played by Haley Lu Richardson, was one of the silver screen’s biggest stars.

It’s visually stunning, with intricate costumes and actual outdoor scenes — no studio sets — that transport you back a century in time.

That in itself is a remarkable feat, given the film had a shoestring budget with a shoot time of just 21 days.

“Every single day, I woke up and I thought it was all over, for sure. I thought we wouldn’t have money, we wouldn’t be able to make our schedule. But every single day, we did. It was a little miracle each day.

“Part of the reason it worked was Michael Engler, the director. There is no one alive who could’ve done it except for him. He had a working knowledge of every street in New York, having filmed so many TV series there.”

Engler has worked on a long list of iconic shows, from Sex and the City to 30 Rock. He also directed several episodes of Downton Abbey, whose creator Julian Fellowes wrote the screenplay for The Chaperone.

The response from some critics in the US is evidently weighing on McGovern.

“A lot of the response from the critics in America, I think, is them looking at it and thinking it’s a musty old costume drama,” she says.

“It’s a subversive movie, in a way. Underneath all of the costumes is something that’s very relevant today, that’s real, and a point of discussion.”

Elizabeth McGovern’s character, the seemingly ordinary Norma, also goes on her own extraordinary journey of discovery in The Chaperone.

Elizabeth McGovern spoke of her frustration at some critics in the US over the film The Chaperone. Picture: John Feder

It’s about the pressures of innocence as well as innocence lost. It’s about the role of women in society, Hollywood’s destructive culture and vulnerability of those venturing out into the world.

“I really feel like I completely understand Louise’s experience of being young in Hollywood,” McGovern says somewhat nostalgically.

She was 17 when she set off from her small town in Illinois to study at Juilliard in New York. Two years later, she landed her first feature film role, Ordinary People, and a year later, a Best Supporting Actress nod at the 1981 Oscars for Ragtime.

“Hollywood doesn’t want women to be beautiful or sexy and have something to say,” she says. “It completely suppresses their voices. That was the part of Louise that I could totally understand from my own experiences.”

Elizabeth McGovern, Greg Clark, Victoria Hill and Rebecca Eaton attend the premiere of The Chaperone. Picture: Getty Images

You can count on one hand the number of older actresses who have managed to maintain successful and long-term careers, she says.

It’s because Hollywood lacks an appetite for stories about women over a certain age — something she experienced trying to make this movie.

“So many people said that no one would care about the old hag that goes to New York — that kind of thing,” McGovern sighs.

Many people might find that depressing, particularly given the women-led revolution sparked by the Me Too movement.

“Me too. And the women saying that! And the older women. I felt like saying, well, no longer we’re in this boat. Playing along with the patriarchal status quo in order to be cool and stay relevant … I think, what the hell is wrong with you?

“There’s a ways still to go. One step forward, two steps back.”

The Chaperone also deals with Hollywood’s tendency to chew up and spit out its young female stars.

Brooks, as history tells us, was chewed up and spat out by the Hollywood machine. In the film, she tells Norma how she feels “all used up” by 30.

It’s around that age that the real-life star made her final film — something that McGovern admits remains “hardly a unique experience”.

But for all the recent talk, McGovern is sceptical about how much has actually changed in Hollywood.

Asked if things are getting better, even slowly, she replies: “Honestly? No. They’re not.

“We’re having discussions now that I think are so healthy and it’ll be interesting to see the long-term impact.

“The discussions about the sexualised culture, which are frank and honest, where people are looking at how destructive is, is truly seminal.

“But I don’t know whether things will change. We’ll see. It’s anybody’s guess.”

Elizabeth McGovern’s next big screen release is the film adaptation of hit TV series Downton Abbey.

Elizabeth McGovern is back as Lady Grantham.

Her next highly anticipated big screen release is the feature length adaptation of Downton Abbey, although she’s tight-lipped about what audiences can expect.

“It’s a gift for the fans,” McGovern says.

“There isn’t too much change. We haven’t moved forward in time, the characters say pretty much what they’ve always said in different incarnations. It’s like a more glamorous TV episode, sort of.”

While the characters fans know and love will be much the same, and the period of time unchanged, she said it was all on a much grander film scale.

“The parties are even fancier.”

Elizabeth McGovern says The Chaperone was a labour of love. Picture: Darren Leigh Roberts

McGovern admits she had to think about whether to reprise the role of Lady Grantham for the film and remains amazed that producers managed to “pull everybody together” for it.

“I had to think about it, to be honest. I personally loved it as a TV show, so I wasn’t sure if it was a good idea. But there’s such an appetite for it.”

But for now, her focus is on getting the word out about The Chaperone — a labour of love that she knows audiences will enjoy, if they just ignore the harsh critical reviews.

“I’m on pins and needles. I want it to do well. It’s a great story and wonderful filmmaking. It’s one thing to make it, to have been able to make it … but I want people to see it.”

McGovern feels as though it’s too soon to allow even a celebration of the enormous feat of having made a great movie on a tiny budget, especially one industry heavyweights brushed off.

“It’s because we’re in the middle of it still. I feel like I’m giving birth. It’s still painful!”

The Chaperone opens in cinemas across Australia tomorrow, April 25