Allen Leech of Downton Abbey on the new film and his inspiring Cork teacher
Allen Leech stars as Tom Branson and Tuppence Middleton as Lucy Smith in Downton Abbey: A New Era.
Downton Abbey was already being talked of as an emerging TV phenomenon. But it was during an encounter with airport security in the early days of the series that Irish actor Allen Leech realised quite how big it had become.
“The episode where I left Sybil in Ireland and came back to Downton had just aired in the States the night before,” he laughs at the memory. “I was coming in through US immigration in New York, and the guy looked at my passport, looked at me, shook his head and went: ‘That was a shitty thing you did to your wife’.”
A working actor for over a decade, Leech was suddenly a household name due to the global success of the show, as another encounter with one of his favourite actors at an awards ceremony proved.
“People that you've admired for years were coming up to say ‘we love Downton’. I remember Jeff Daniels who I've admired for all my life, especially work that he's done in comedies, he was there for The Newsroom. I was looking at him and he waved and I kind of kept looking behind me going: ‘I wonder who he's waving at?’ and he went: ‘No, I'm waving at you!’” You get the sense that Downton is a success the Dubliner values and appreciates.
Already a rising star in his homeland thanks to movies like Cowboys & Angels and Man About Dog, the show ran for six series and became a cultural and commercial smash. Public appetite for the genteel adventures of the Crawley family means Downton keeps on giving - now on the big screen - and he is proud to have brought an Irish perspective to the stately doors of one of England’s most-beloved dramas.
“I'm very happy that that's there. I think the Irishness is very important but it was a happy accident of the fact that I auditioned for the part,” says Leech. “The part was supposed to be a guy called John Bronson and he was supposed to be from Yorkshire. When I went in, I'd practiced my Yorkshire accent but Julian [Downton Abbey creator and writer Julian Fellowes] said: ‘No, keep yours. Actually, I have an idea’. And it literally was born out of that.
“He said this is actually a way that we can bring the historical relevance of what was happening in Ireland to Downton by having an Irish character. So I think it's very important. And it played a huge amount in how I played the character as well, because there was oftentimes that moment of Tom just sitting at that massive table going: ‘How the f**k did I get here?’ He certainly had impostor syndrome sitting here in his white tie and tails going: ‘I do not belong’.”
Downton’s TV success is a rare thing - a series with an appeal that endures on the big screen. Following 2019’s Downton Abbey: The Movie, another film, A New Era, opens in cinemas this weekend. This film is set in both the famous house itself, which has been taken over by the cast and crew of a movie, and in the South of France, where the family has inherited a villa in mysterious circumstances. The film opens with the wedding of Leech’s Tom Branson and Lucy, after the widower has found love again.
“It’s exciting for my character in that it opens with his wedding. It’s taken quite a long time for Tom to get back to finding happiness again. He scoots over for his honeymoon and gets quite a surprise when he gets back to find out that his daughter inherits this quite fabulous place in France.
“Up until about four days before [the France shoot] it was looking like it was going to be somewhere in Scotland for Covid protocols. There's a scene where I come out of the water and I think I would have moved slightly quicker than I did!”
Dubliner Leech was originally signed up, he reveals, for just three episodes of the series before becoming one of its most popular characters. “I do feel very lucky and very proud that Tom has remained in this story. I think there were a number of times when Julian could have easily written him out - certainly when Jess left the show. So I love the fact that Tom is still there. I think it's nice To have an outsider's voice within the story.”
Growing up in Ireland, Leech had expressed an interest in acting throughout his teenage years and cites several school and drama teachers - including a Corkman - of having a positive and powerful influence on him.
“I had a wonderful teacher, Martin Kelly, from Cork, who was my English teacher and the passion he has for English, especially for Shakespeare was something that I absolutely just loved. He inspired me so much, because that passion definitely came over. And he also directed the school play I did, Othello.
“Brian O'Mahony, who was my sixth class teacher, was so passionate about drama. And then a lady who just passed away at the age of 99, Máire Cranny, was a wonderful drama teacher. Her love of poetry and language was something that I only now really can look back and see the impact it's had on my life.
“My family were very open to it. It was probably when I really started taking it seriously and thought about doing it in college, my folks very much had the attitude and rightly so I think, to get a degree so you have something to go back and fall back on, because it's obviously a very uncertain life.”
As well as Downton, he cites Irish movies Cowboys and Angels - his first feature film - and Man About Dog as successes that encouraged him to keep going. A job for acclaimed British director Mike Leigh was also pivotal.
“I did a play that Mike Leigh directed here in London called Ecstasy, it ran in the Hampstead Theatre and then moved into the West End. That was a turning point in how I approached the craft because I studied theatre studies, but it was an academic course rather than a practical course. Having that time to work with Mike Leigh was just phenomenal.”
Returning home for the film’s Irish premiere this week was special for a number of reasons, not least that he’s bringing his two-year-old daughter to his home country for the first time. He and his wife Jessica Blair Herman are expecting a second child.
“I'm bringing my daughter home - the first time she'll get to go to Ireland, which is wonderful, and meet some of her cousins that she hasn't got to meet yet.”
- Downton Abbey: A New Era is in cinemas now
