Dame Maggie Smith was not particularly happy with her work in “Harry Potter” and “Downton Abbey”.
The 84-year-old actress recently opened up to ES Magazine about her longstanding career, including her famous roles as Minerva McGonagall in the “Harry Potter” films and Violet Crawley in the drama series “Downton Abbey”. However, the roles were not as iconic to her as they were to the rest of the world.
“I am deeply grateful for the work in ‘Potter’ and indeed ‘Downton’,” she said. “But it wasn’t what you’d call satisfying. I didn’t really feel I was acting in those things.”
In fact, she often spoke about this with her “Harry Potter” co-star, the late Alan Rickman who played Severus Snape. The pair felt as though their work in the movies consisted of too many reaction shots.
“I wanted to get back to the stage so much because theatre is basically my favourite medium, and I think I felt as though I’d left it all unfinished.”
Smith got her start on the stage in the 1950s and made her return this year in a one-woman play called “A German Life”. Unfortunately, she felt a lot of “doubt doubt doubt” as soon as she agreed to it.
“I suddenly felt twice as old as I actually was,” she explained. “When you haven’t done a show for a long time, there’s something pretty dumb about doing it totally on your own.”
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