Dan Stevens appeared markedly different from his Downton Abbey persona at the London premiere of his new film Swiped on Thursday, drawing attention for both his role in the Disney+ biopic and his contemporary red-carpet styling.
The 42-year-old actor, best known for playing Matthew Crawley in the period drama, joined co-star Lily James to promote Swiped, which chronicles the early career of Whitney Wolfe Herd, the founder of Bumble and a co-founder of Tinder. The film is scheduled to be released in the United States and the United Kingdom on Sept. 19.
On the red carpet, Stevens wore a green shirt over a white vest top paired with black trousers, white loafers and clear-frame glasses, a look that commentators said contrasted sharply with the polished, early-20th-century image associated with his Downton Abbey character. He posed with cast members and appeared in high spirits during the photocalls.
Swiped focuses on Wolfe Herd’s account of discovering misogynistic behaviour at early dating apps and her subsequent campaign within Tinder that ultimately led her to launch Bumble, a platform designed to give women greater control by allowing them to make the first move. The film is being released on Disney+ on Sept. 19 in the U.S. and U.K., and the London premiere formed part of a promotional tour for the project.
Stevens has diversified his screen work since Downton Abbey, taking roles across film and television that depart from his period-drama beginnings. He will not appear in Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale, which is due Sept. 12, because his character was written out of the series after a car crash in its third season. The finale is set in 1930, roughly 18 years after the series began, and follows the Crawley family as they contend with the aftermath of the Wall Street Crash and the social consequences faced by central characters.
The Downton Abbey franchise culminated in three feature films and a 15-year run on television, and several former cast members gathered recently to mark the series’ conclusion. Stevens’s attendance at the Swiped premiere underscores his continued presence on the promotional circuit for contemporary projects while his former series reaches its televised and cinematic denouement.
Representatives for Stevens and the film’s distributors did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Swiped’s release and Stevens’s red-carpet appearance highlight ongoing interest in dramatizations of tech-industry origin stories and in actors who transition from high-profile television roles to varied film projects.