casting couch

Shirley MacLaine Returning to Downton Abbey

While Downtown Abbey has lost Matthew Crawley (a.k.a. Dan Stevens), Lady Sybil (a.k.a. Jessica Brown Findlay), and “thoroughly despicable human beingSarah O’Brien (a.k.a. Siobhan Finneran), Dame Maggie Smith’s Dowager Countess will continue to enjoy the company of shrill American matriarch Martha Levinson. On Saturday, Carnival Films and PBS announced that Shirley MacLaine is confirmed for the show’s next season, along with a whole new crew of aristocrats played by opera singer Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, Tom Cullen, Sense & Sensibility’s Dame Harriet Walter, Julian Ovenden, and Joanna David. The Granthams will also have a new valet, played by EastEnders’ Nigel Harman.