Elizabeth McGovern was "giddy" to return to her character, Cora Crawley, for "Downton Abbey: A New Era." In the age of COVID, she was glad to get out of the house.
"As an actor, you get to rip off your mask for the time during the day when you're actually doing scenes. For everybody else, it's a giant pain in the neck, particularly the studio that has to pay for all the testing," said McGovern, whose movie opens in theaters Friday. "I feel so grateful that they went ahead and did it anyway because, for me, it's nothing but fun. Obviously, you have to wear a mask but I was doing that anyway."
McGovern was happy when the PBS series ended after six seasons but said she feels like Cora the minute she slips back into her costumes, which became more comfy when the time frame advanced from the corseted 1910s to the freer 1920s. She plays an American heiress whose now-loving husband (Hugh Bonneville) married her for her money, which he needed to keep the titular estate running.
