Talk about a casting coup – that is what Oscar-winning actress Shirley MacLaine is to season three of BBC’s Downton Abbey. Just the thought of her locked in matriarchal battle with co-star Dame Maggie Smith is priceless in itself. Throw in a wedding or two, unforeseen betrayals amid the crippling financial and psychological remnants of World War l and there is drama aplenty. Debashine Thangevelo found out more about the inimitable MacLaine’s contributions as Martha Levinson (Cora’s mother)…
WEDDINGS sometimes have a nasty habit of bringing out the worst in families. With Mary and Matthew’s nuptials coming up – Martha Levinson (Cora’s mother), played by veteran Shirley MacLaine, makes her arrival at the Yorkshire country estate of Downton Abbey.
Yes, you sniffed right, her en- trance in the third instalment of the award-winning period drama is beset with niggling issues – one of which is rubbing a very traditional Violet Crawley (Dame Maggie Smith), the Dowager Countess of Grantham, up the wrong way.
Let’s just say, Levinson’s non-conformist American attitude triggers much conflict in the upstairs world.
And, honestly, who better than the legendary MacLaine to bring about such anarchy and to match satirical wits with Smith at the same time? Although, she wasn’t sure what to make of the offer at first.
Quite hypnotic when she speaks, MacLaine shares funny anecdotes with abandon, too.
She laughs: “I happened to mention it (getting the offer) to somebody – as you do in a hair- dressing place – and suddenly all the women there had these stories about what Elizabeth McGovern’s mother would be like. I thought, ‘my God, the whole world’s obsessed with this show and this family’. And that’s how it started.”
As someone with an encyclo- paedic knowledge of character interpretation as evidenced by her myriad awards over the years, MacLaine says she had a mental picture of what Levinson was like.
The actress offers, in a somewhat animated tone: “In those days the American women who had money were looking for titles, and the titled men were looking for American money. So Martha fits the bill of the American matriarch who lands across the pond with money. And they expect her to finance whatever’s wrong with Downton Abbey.”
Of course, her contribution is far from being as straightforward as that.
She shares: “She (Levinson) is extremely outspoken. Martha’s basic role in these episodes is to plead with the Dowager Countess to wrest herself, if possible, away from tradition, because that’s what caused the war in the first place.”
Of course, she would sooner convince a horse to fly than induce an orthodox Crawley to relax her aristocratic beliefs.
On MacLaine’s scenes of conflict with a formidable Smith, the actress reveals: “We do a little sparring, we have our moments, but it’s more sophisticated.
“Martha is not just a crass, cranky American coming in there to call a spade a spade. She’s very smart, and to a large extent sensitive, as to what’s going on with all her daughter’s children. And Maggie’s character is so well-established, but you have to look beyond what her expected reaction to Martha is.
“The Dowager Countess is a human being who has complications and a past of some pain that Martha understands – and to some extent addresses herself to.”
While in awe of the set, MacLaine says the stupendous costumes took some getting used to.
She chuckles: “Now that’s a once- in-a-lifetime experience, to shoot in such a hallowed place. I enjoyed very, very much that castle and the grounds, the past and the energy. I’m very much into that stuff. But as a jogging pants and tennis shoes type of girl, I hated to put that stuff on. I’m not one for wardrobe.
“But Caroline (McCall, costume designer) was brilliant. I knew that it was half of my character so I had to do it. It’s like dialogue; you have to do it right.”
Much of the wardrobe, inter- estingly, were American originals sourced from an antique costume house in the San Fernando Valley in California.
“We did most of the fittings there,” she reveals. “I was wearing dresses and tops and hats and shoes from the Twenties. It could not have been more authentic.
“The wig maker came out from London and we did all the clothes there. And, I have to say, you will not recognise me.”
While viewers will be pleasantly surprised by MacLaine in the role of Martha Levinson, that chutzpah she is known for adds a familiar dimension to it all.
Applaud her, we viewers most certainly will!
In the meantime, producer Liz Trubridge says: “She (MacLaine) fitted in like a dream to our Downton world and was a joy to work with.”
Aside from the popularity of the series seeing them inundated with casting requests and set visits, she says season three plays host to “romances, failed romances, new relationships forming, unexpected event happenings…”
Of course, that’s just the tip of a dramatic iceberg that is set to sweep across our screens.
• Downton Abbey 3 debuts on BBC Entertainment (DStv channel 120) on Sunday at 9pm.