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Downton and late-life success

26 October 2015

‘The whole thing is so surprising, you could never make it work as a film. I was told today by friends who'd been to the Writers' Guild that there was a huge cheer when I'd won. Not because they knew me but because I had disproved the idea prevalent in Hollywood that if you've got it, by your mid-thirties it will have begun to manifest itself. I became the honorary president of the last-chance saloon...

Downton has been a big thing for me. It's been a worldwide sensation to a degree that is unknown in most careers. I consider myself lucky to have had one; I would be astonished if there was another.'

Julian Fellowes, creator and writer of Downton Abbey, in the Sunday Times