Hugh Bonneville is delighted to be back in Downton Abbey but annoyed to be as thick as ever

Revered British actor Hugh Bonneville is back on the big screen with the Downtown Abbey movie, but says he has one big issue with his character.

He’s famous all over the world for playing Robert Crawley, Earl of Grantham, but Hugh Bonneville says he couldn’t think of anything worse than living in Downton Abbey for real.

“I wouldn’t want to live in that era at all, because unless you are fantastically rich it’s a pretty ghastly life,” he says.

“I don’t think I would have functioned well upstairs or lasted downstairs.”

He swears he’s nothing like Robert Crawley, but clad in an immaculately-tailored three-piece suit and with a cutglass British accent, there’s not much in it.

The 55-year-old actor is chatting in a London hotel suite ahead of the Downton Abbey movie premiere — the much-anticipated return of the beloved TV series.

However, Bonneville says he didn’t imagine Downton would be a hit when he first read the script.

“We had no idea it would be a success, because you never know whether any project is going to work,” he says. “I remember talking to producer Gareth Neame and he said, ‘Let’s face it, these shows don’t tend to work past the first season’.”

So low-key was the launch, the cast didn’t even do any interviews at first.

“Costume drama was dead,” he says, “Of course then after episode one came out and the reaction from the audience was remarkable they were begging us to go on breakfast telly and talk about it.”

Hugh Bonneville in a scene from the movie Downton Abbey.

Now four years on from its final episode, we’ve returned to Downton Abbey for another slice of the Crawley family dramas — this time based around a royal visit.

The film delivers everything Downton fans desire and leaves the audience definitely wanting more. So will there be another movie?

“It depends — the real challenge is will the audiences that followed us faithfully on TV get out of their armchairs and go the cinema,” says Bonneville. “I think it works beautifully in the cinema and I am sure there would be an appetite, certainly amongst the cast, to do another one.”

He says it was a wonderful experience to reunite with all the old cast members.

“We had kept up in the intervening years — we had had a couple of reunion suppers — but when we did the reading, there was a lot of wry grins that we were all back here. It was warmly satisfying and I have to say getting back into filming was very comfortable.”

Robert Crawley is incredibly forgiving of both his family and staff’s transgressions — especially for such a formal era.

Is he like that in real life?

“I try to be, because we are all full of human frailty,” he says.

“That’s one of the things I like about the character — you expect him to be a moustache-twirling tough lord of the manor who will throw you out in the cold unless you pay the rent but he’s remarkably tolerant and liberal underneath.

“(Writer) Julian Fellowes has said there is a lot of his own father in the character who clearly was a patriarch in the traditional sense, but also was a man of forgiveness and fairness and I think those are admirable qualities.”

Hugh Bonneville and wife Lulu Williams attend the Downton Abbey World Premierein London this week. Picture: Joe Maher/Getty Images

But the Cambridge University-educated actor does have one beef with the Earl — he’s a bit stupid.

“Sometimes I’d get frustrated with the character’s low level of IQ — he would finish the season relatively well and then suddenly he would be incredibly thick at the beginning of the next season. I would say, ‘Come on, where’s the guy I knew and liked?’ and Julian would say stick with me, it will all be all right and of course by the end of the season something would have redeemed the character from being quote so bullish and stupid,” he says.

Aside from Downton Abbey, Bonneville has enjoyed a long career as one of the best-loved faces in British cinema and TV, his calm characterful tones instantly recognisable, whether he is playing Mr Brown in Paddington or his BAFTA-award nominated portrayal of a young John Bayley in Iris.

He is modest about his success, putting his career longevity “mainly down to luck” and “never expecting for a single moment that the next job is guaranteed”.

“Like all actors I respect, there is no sense of complacency about the work — I feel very lucky to do something I love and am always hungry to try out the next thing,” he says.

“Also, not punching directors is a good way to keep going,” he adds, with a smile.

Hugh Bonneville in a scene from the movie Paddington.

He says he doesn’t have a strategy with the roles he chooses — but does like to mix things up, which is why he also loves making kids movies and voicing children’s characters.

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Bonneville, who lives in Sussex with his wife Lulu and son Felix, is currently filming kids’ musical Jingle Jangle and as well as Paddington has leant his voice to TV shows including Thomas & Friends, Stick Man, Mr Stink and Sofia the First.

“As a kid I was so intoxicated by voices on cartoons — be it Michael Hordern voicing Paddington Bear or The Magic Roundabout — and I loved the world of imagination that that inspired,” he says.

“I go to schools in my local area and read Paddington books and to have kids transported by stories that are 60 years is old is great and to get them into reading and using their own imaginations is wonderful to part of.”

Downton Abbey is in cinemas on Thursday.

Originally published as Hugh Bonneville is delighted to be back in Downton Abbey but annoyed to be as thick as ever