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Many of the series' characters are testing class boundaries, like Branson. Now that he has married Sybil, Leech says, "Branson is caught between two worlds." The Grantham clan looks down on him, and the servants no longer know how to relate to him.
PHOTOS: Meet the 'Downton Abbey' cast
"It's even strange as an actor because now I'm acting with people I never would have acted with," he says. "You find yourself thinking, 'I know exactly how the character feels.' Sitting at the table, you're going, 'Maggie's right there — I used to drive you!' The only time we ever met was when I'd open a door, which was exactly the same as the character."
But he says Smith warmly welcomed him to the aristocracy: "The first thing she said was, 'I'm so glad you're back.' Which was lovely."
Production surprises
Here's one thing you don't expect to see at "Downton Abbey": ladies and footmen stuffed into a red double-decker bus eating lunch in full costume. That's "Downton's" version of a cafeteria, with actors and production crew sitting in rows tucking into hearty meat and potatoes.
Another surprise is how much smaller the castle's rooms seem in person. Maybe it's just that there are so many people buzzing around the video monitors or maneuvering heavy machinery perilously close to intricately carved furniture.
"The thing that scares me is the Vermeer painting," says producer Trubridge. Presumably, the production has insurance? "Yes," she replies, "but not that good!"
Almost all the shooting for "upstairs" scenes is done in a handful of public rooms here: hall, library, drawing room. The bedrooms and servants quarters have been reconstructed at Ealing Studios in London. Even a facsimile of the castle's back door has been built at the studio.
Dockery is a busy woman on the set. The patron of a charity for people with disfigurements, she is showing around a young boy from the organization in between takes, watching his face light up as she introduces him to her castmates.
After shooting a drawing room scene, Dockery walks outside in a black gown, pulling her white puffy coat around her. She's every bit as poised as Mary, but Dockery herself is working class; she remembers that when she was 9, she lost out on a role in "The Sound of Music" because of her strong Essex accent.
PHOTOS: Behind-the-scenes of 'Downton Abbey'
Training at a classical drama conservatory and a stint at the National Theatre ironed that out, but she found the "Downton" part a stretch: "She was this very cold, arrogant, young aristocrat, and I hadn't touched on a character like that before. I loved how her character evolved in the first series and became a lot more vulnerable after the incident" — that is, when a Turkish diplomat died in her bed.
The once-reckless Mary has evolved so much that she's beginning to value tradition. Says Dockery, "In the first series, she said, 'Why would I want to end up here? I'm really bored.' And that's all changed. She feels a huge amount of responsibility now to the legacy of Downton."
Season 4 in works
"Downton" has been greenlighted for a fourth season. Gareth Neame, the series' executive producer and managing director of Carnival Films who originally conceived the series, says they will start shooting again in February. He can't predict how long "Downton" will go on, noting, "I want it to be around long enough that it becomes something people cherish, but I don't want them to tire of it."
Neame says he never expected this booming success: "I assumed because we were on PBS we'd get a small, older-skewing Anglophile audience. I did not anticipate it would be the biggest show in 'Masterpiece's' history, and bigger than most network shows."
Will the series last long enough for Lady Edith to find a purpose or for the villainous Thomas to find a nice man and settle down? Fellowes insists there is no giant board in his office to keep track of the myriad of characters and their labyrinthine plots.
"I don't have any of that!" he says vehemently. "I'd like to say that, like J.K. Rowling, I imagined six seasons in advance — but I completely hadn't!"
One secret of "Downton," Fellowes says, is that both PBS and the British network ITV leave the show alone creatively. Rebecca Eaton, executive producer of "Masterpiece," clearly believes in Fellowes' vision: "Julian is writing this all himself. He's the ink-stained wretch with the eyeshade and the candlelight. In this country, there would be a writers room and he'd be lying back having big ideas and a team of writers would have to make it work. But he does it all. He is Maggie Smith some days, and then he's Bates, and then he's Isis the dog."
Fellowes is so attached to his "Downton" characters that he wants to write a prequel novel.
"I feel the story of Robert's courtship would be rather a nice basis of a novel — and a little bit maybe about what Bates really did do in the Boer War and so on," he says cheekily. "That's my plan, anyway."
