Michelle Dockery drew attention to a growing baby bump as she arrived at NBC Studios in New York for an appearance on The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon, saying she was entering a “peppy phase” as she prepares to welcome her first child.
Dockery, 43, appeared in high spirits for the taping and discussed the impending end of the Downton Abbey franchise after a 15-year run. "I'm feeling great thanks," she told Fallon after he opened the segment by referencing her pregnancy. "I'm entering my peppy phase." She described the concluding film as "bittersweet," adding that the title, Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale, signals the definitive end of the story.
The film, released Sept. 12, is set in 1930, some 18 years after the series’ first episode, and follows the Crawley family in the aftermath of the Wall Street Crash and the fallout from Lady Mary’s scandalous divorce. The Grand Finale is the third cinematic installment in the Downton Abbey franchise, which began as a six-series run on ITV and has spanned a decade and a half in the public eye.
On the red carpet and on the street outside the studio, Dockery wore a fitted black gown with a leather trench and patent leather heels from SAUVEREIGN, along with heavily tinted sunglasses. She has been promoting the film on both sides of the Atlantic, having surprised fans by debuting a prominent bump at the UK premiere earlier in September.
Dockery, who earned critical notice and multiple awards nominations for her portrayal of Lady Mary Crawley, has been nominated for three consecutive Emmy Awards and a Golden Globe. Her career-defining role helped anchor the long-running period drama and its subsequent film adaptations.
Her personal life has also been noted in coverage surrounding the film’s release. Dockery was previously engaged to Irish publicist John Dineen, who died in 2015 after a 15-month battle with a rare form of cancer. She later became engaged to Jasper Waller-Bridge in 2022 and the couple married in 2023; Waller-Bridge is the younger brother of actress and writer Phoebe Waller-Bridge.
During her Tonight Show appearance, Dockery reflected on the length of the Downton farewell, calling it a "very long goodbye" and reiterating that this new film will close the book on the franchise. The Grand Finale’s release concludes more than a decade of storytelling that followed the fortunes of the Crawley family and their household through social change and personal upheaval.
Promotional appearances are expected to continue in the coming days as the film reaches wider audiences, and Dockery’s public comments have underscored both the professional milestone of concluding a long-running role and the personal milestone she is preparing to reach off screen.