Julian Fellowes is gearing up to release his latest period drama, HBO’s The Gilded Age, on Jan. 24, and he’s teasing viewers could see a Downton Abbey crossover.
“I’ve learned this much, never say never. I’ll stick with that as my answer,” Fellowes tells Deadline with a smile regarding the crossover on Wednesday.
Jeanne Tripplehorn HBO Downton Abbey fans would not take the cheeky grin lightly. Such a crossover is possible and would make perfect sense as it pertains to Downton character Cora Levinson Crawley (Elizabeth McGovern), an American heiress who marries British blue blood Robert Crawley, Earl of Grantham (Hugh Bonneville). Though she was born in Cincinnati, Cora revealed she has an aunt in New York that was still alive in 1914.
Possible aunts include Jeanne Tripplehorn’s mysterious Sylvia Chamberland or Carrie Coon’s new money honey, Bertha Russell.
The Gilded Age open in 1882, after the recent death of Marian Brook’s (Louisa Jacobson) father has left her penniless and with no other option than to leave Pennsylvania and move in with her aunts in New York City, Agnes Van Rhijn (Christine Baranski) and Ada Brook (Cynthia Nixon). Along the way, she meets a kindred spirit in Peggy Scott (Denée Benton), and the pair start up a friendship as they begin their lives in a city divided by the old and the new—money and otherwise.
Louisa Jacobson and Denée Benton Alison Cohen Rosa/HB “[The Gilded Age] has very different energy [to Downton Abbey],” he said. “Things on Downton are on a decline, whereas there not at all in decline in The Gilded Age. This whole new gang is just hitting the town with all the money in the world and they want to have a great time. I think that creates a kind of upward energy that infuses the show but also I think, at the time it infused society with a different energy.”
Fellowes’ new film, Downton Abbey: A New Era, is set to be released on March 18.
