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JK Rowling Receives The Freedom Of The City Of London (May 08, 2012)

JK Rowling Receives The Freedom Of The City Of London (May 08, 2012)

Permalink | 2,094 notes | May 8, 2012 | #JK rowling

(Source: detectivenicks, via megustamemes)

Permalink | 43,218 notes | May 8, 2012 | #lol | #true

Downton Abbey’s Jessica Brown-Findlay - that’s Lady Sybil, to you - slips into an outfit that would certainly raise the eyebrows of the Countess Dowager

“I don’t even own a hairbrush,” says actress Jessica Brown-Findlay, who sounds cheerfully exasperated as she details the sartorial distinctions between herself and Lady Sybil Crawley, the character she plays on British period-drama sensation Downton Abbey.

“I wear old jumpers with holes in them. I don’t think I’ve ever looked as polished as Sybil”.

It’s not all bad news: Those differences allow Brown-Findlay a certain measure of privacy. “There’s a real joy in playing characters that aren’t like you,” she says. “And I don’t think anybody ever recognizes me - [someone] might think, She looks like Lady Sybil…. if Lady Sybil was mental”.

Originally conceived as a soap opera with lovely locations and a distinguished pedigree (its creator, Julian Fellowes, is both an Oscar-winning screenwriter, for Gosford Park, and a conservative peer properly addressed as Lord Fellowes of West Stafford), Downton has evolved into a global phenomenon, giving PBS, its American broadcaster, its highest ratings in three years and making stars of its cast - including Brown-Findlay.

While the show features some of television’s most sharply drawn characters - including the inimitable, indefatigable Dowager Countess, played by the queenly Dame Maggie Smith - the series makes much of its inanimate elements as well. The titular Downton estate is the show’s primary concern; its costumes, meanwhile telegraph not just fashion preferences, but the shifts transforming traditional notions of class, gender and politics.

Before World War I, this meant that Sybil had just “three or four” evening dresses; during the war, when Sybil volunteers at a hospital for war veterans, Brown-Findlay spent most of her scenes in a nurse’s uniform.

Now that the war’s over, and she’s married progressive one-time chauffeur Tom Branson, Sybil may be allowed to reinvent herself fully - both in how she dresses and how she spends her time.

“Sybil hasn’t been allowed to dress the way she wants to yet,” says Brown-Findlay, who adds that she is enjoying wearing the 1920s costumes of the show’s third season, which is currently filming. “It’s all really quite elegant.” At least she’s not a servant, doomed to forever appear in the same costume, season after season. “If someone is, like ‘This dress isn’t very comfortable’ Jo Fro [Joanne Froggatt, who plays lady’s maid Anna Bates] is like ‘Oh my God, shut up,’” Brown-Findlay says. “We call it ‘costume envy.’”