Michelle Dockery, who announced her pregnancy at the London premiere of Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale last week, posed with fellow cast members Joanne Froggatt and Laura Carmichael at the film’s New York premiere afterparty on Monday night.
The 43-year-old actress, known for her role as Lady Mary Crawley, wore a sparkling black, body-hugging gown that showed her growing bump. Froggatt, 45, who plays Anna Bates, appeared in a glittering strapless dress and strappy silver heels, while Carmichael, 39, selected a nude-toned outfit paired with a sleek black handbag. Elizabeth McGovern, 64, who plays Cora Crawley, attended the event with her husband, director Simon Curtis.
The gathering brought together a wide swath of the Downton ensemble and collaborators on the film, including Hugh Bonneville (Lord Grantham), Allen Leech (Tom Branson) with his wife Jessica Blair Herman, Paul Giamatti, Alessandro Nivola, Christine Baranski and producer Gareth Neame. Series creator Julian Fellowes attended with his wife, Emma, and was joined on the red carpet by director Jack Robbins. Bonneville, 61, who attended the London premiere last week with his girlfriend Heidi Kadlecova, also appeared at the New York event.
The cast and crew were in New York to celebrate the U.S. premiere of Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale, the third film in the franchise that culminates a 15-year run spanning the television series and two previous movies. The film, set in 1930 some 18 years after the first episode of the series, follows the Crawley family in the aftermath of the Wall Street Crash and addresses Lady Mary’s scandalous divorce and questions over her eligibility to inherit the estate. The film will be released on Sept. 12.
The Grand Finale pays tribute to the late Dame Maggie Smith and marks the first Downton television or motion picture project she did not appear in following her death last September. Makers of the film have said the story also explores the household’s financial pressures and the way the next generation must adapt to changing times.
Dockery’s pregnancy drew attention at last week’s London premiere when she revealed the news to assembled media. She married producer Jasper Waller-Bridge in 2023; reports say the couple first connected in 2019 through his sister, actor and writer Phoebe Waller-Bridge, and announced plans to marry in a notice in The Times in January 2022. Dockery had previously been engaged to Irish publicist John Dineen, who died in 2015 after a battle with a rare form of cancer.
Also at the New York afterparty, Fellowes addressed broader themes the Downton franchise has explored, commenting in recent interviews on public attitudes toward wealth and success. In a conversation with Radio Times, he described what he called a "curious double standard" in Britain of disliking the wealthy while still aspiring to wealth, and said he viewed admiration for achievement as not "ungenerous." The comments mirror some of the social tensions depicted across the series and films as characters contend with changing social hierarchies.
The premieres in London and New York brought together principal cast members and collaborators for what producers have billed as a final on-screen chapter for the Crawley family, closing a storyline that began with the television debut more than a decade and a half ago.