Hugh Bonneville drops a heartbreaking news on 'Downton Abbey'

Hugh Bonneville recently revealed that the new Downton Abbey movie will be a "special tribute" to Dame Maggie Smith, who passed away last month at the age of 89.

According to the Daily Mail, Bonneville, who played Robert Crawley in the movie, said that they had finished filming the third movie this summer, and it will "wrap up all the stories."

The 60-year-old actor quipped, "It's very much set in the house and saying goodbye to all these characters, and we obviously say goodbye to Dame Maggie, which was very poignant on screen and now in real life."

"She'll be sorely missed. But the final film will obviously be a great lasting tribute to her," he added, articulating his thoughts.

For those unversed, after Maggie's demise in September this year, an old video of her from The Graham Norton Show popped up, in which the legendary actress confessed that she had "never watched Downton Abbey."

The host asked, "So are you, in a way, sort of glad that Downton's over?" to which Maggie replied, "Oh yeah."

Emphasising her response, she explained, "No, I really am. Honestly, she was about by the time we had finished, she must have been a hundred and ten, so I couldn't go on and on."

"I couldn't! It just didn't make sense," Maggie concluded by saying.

It is pertinent to mention that the Downton Abbey series, which started in 2010 and ended in 2015, had five seasons, while the first film was released in 2019.