UPDATE: |Downton Abbey star reveals on The One Show ‘this is the end’ ahead of final movie News

Fans of the series are anxiously awaiting the third and final movie based on the ITV show

A Downton Abbey star has revealed that ‘this is the end’ of the beloved series ahead of its third and final movie.

Premiering back in September 2010 on ITV, the historical drama depicted the lives of the aristocratic Crawley family and their domestic servants in the post-Edwardian era.

Running for fifty-two episodes across six seasons, including five Christmas specials, the Hugh Bonneville series was a major hit in the UK and in the United States.

After tackling events such as the Titanic sinking, the First World War and the Irish War of Independence, the series came to an end in 2015.

Earning 27 Emmy nominations, the most for any international television series in the awards’ history, the series continued with a film adaptation in 2019. Becoming a box office sensation, its sequel Downton Abbey: A New Era was released in 2022.

With Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale releasing in September, actress Joanne Froggatt lifted the lid on the film on Monday’s (April 7) episode of The One Show on BBC One.

With fans fearing that Downton Abbey is ending forever, presenter Alex Scott asked if she was ‘ready to say goodbye’.

“Oh my goodness, it’s going to be hard! We’ve said goodbye a few times, thinking, ‘This is the end’, at the end of the seasons. Then we did one movie and we wondered if we’d get a second movie.

“This really is, the third and final, so this really is goodbye. It’s going to be emotional, but all good things must come to an end, I suppose,” Joanne said.

Playing the role of beloved servant Anna Bates, Joanne has appeared in both films and every season of the programme.

Asked by Gethin Jones if she could give anything away, Joanne replied: “Look, I think I can say Anna, my character, is pregnant because I was pregnant when we were filming and there’s been pictures out there, so that’s one spoiler.”

With Gethin stunned by the reveal, Joanne joked that she ‘wrote her own storyline’ for the character behind the scenes.

Sadly, Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale won’t feature Dame Maggie Smith as Violet Crawley, following the acting legend’s death last year at the age of 80.

Joining the cast for Downton’s swansong is Paul Giamatti, who previously appeared in the 2013 Christmas special as Harold Levinson.

Paying his respects to Maggie, Paul told People: “It was not the same without her, but it felt very much like in her honour in some way. She certainly still feels present through the whole thing.

“Not having her there is obviously a huge loss, but everybody was still acting in her spirit. Working with her the first time around was one of the best things ever and I didn’t even really get to do that much with her.”

He added: “The interesting thing for me was that they even asked me at all because I was like, ‘I don’t have an important character in this story’.

“But what’s funny is my character has a very significant role. He does something very significant in the movie. I was like, ‘It’s really funny they brought me back to do this very important, significant thing’.”