From Notting Hill to Downton Abbey, Hugh Bonneville looks back on an extraordinary career

Hugh Bonneville has an impressive legacy of work, from Paddington to Downton Abbey, Twenty Twelve and The Gold, the actor has won over the hearts and minds of the British public.

The actor began his career on the stage, working with the National Theatre and then the Royal Shakespeare Company where he acted opposite Kenneth Branagh in Hamlet.

It was in 1994 that his film and TV career began thanks to Branagh who cast him in a small role in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, and the rest, as they say, is history.

With so many titles behind him, and plenty more ahead including his new ITV drama Douglas is Cancelled, Bonneville is keen to look back and reflect on his journey through the entertainment industry with Yahoo UK for our interview series Role Recall.

Hugh Bonneville owes 'a great debt' to Kenneth Branagh

Branagh is the person to whom Bonneville gives the most credit for his TV and film success, because it was the actor-director's decision to cast him in 1994 film Mary Shelley's Frankenstein that started it all.

"It was a very important moment in my life looking back on it because I'd never done a film before," Bonneville explains. "At the time, having played the Leortes to Ken's Hamlet at the Royal Shakespeare Company, he commissioned me to write a film and he said 'have you ever been on a film set?' I said 'no, I' just do theatre', and so he said, 'well, why not come along and observe, I can give you a tiny part and you can at least see how a film set works'.

"I owe him a great debt, and it was fascinating seeing him covering all bases. He not only produced and directed, he starred in it as well and was a real force of energy. It was extraordinary watching him on set."

Bonneville took on the small role of Schiller, who appears in the film briefly, but by being part of the production the actor was able to watch how Hollywood screen legend Robert De Niro approached the craft through his performance as The Creation.

"I learned a lot in that first experience, obviously, watching De Niro close up. I only had a few scenes but watching him, the way he worked, rehearsed, and the energy he gave the scenes," he adds.

"I'd heard things about Hollywood stars [and how] once the cameras [are] not on [they] sort of switch off and going back to their trailer and get a stand-in. He was absolutely there for the reverse angles, fully dressed in his costume and giving a huge performance to encourage the other actor that he was speaking to, in this case John Cleese. It was a great lesson, a great experience and one that I will always cherish."

James Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies 'wasn't all it was cracked up to be'

Early on his career Bonneville had the chance to star in a Bond film, Pierce Brosnan's Tomorrow Never Dies in the role of a naval sailor. When one thinks of 007 there's an immediate image that comes to mind of what the set would be like, but Bonneville jokes it wasn't what he imagined.

"I went to meet Roger Spottiswoode, the director, and he said 'I'm putting together the cast for this sequence at the end of the film where the Chinese Navy and the British Navy are at loggerheads in the South China Sea', so I immediately had an image of myself in Thailand for three weeks lying on a sun lounger and occasionally turning up for work," he says.

"Not a bit of it, it was two days in the simulator in Portsmouth, with a load of naval cadets, who did the job of of barking out mission commands far better than we could!"

Despite this, Bonneville says he'd love to return to the Bond franchise in future as he joked: "It's such an iconic franchise, I mean goodness knows how they're gonna reinvent it for the next generation but I've got a Moneypenny in me."

Notting Hill is one of Hugh Bonneville's 'happiest' times on set

Bonneville had his big break, as it were, in the rom-com Notting Hill which was written by Richard Curtis and starred Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts in the lead roles. Bonneville played Bernie, a friend of Grant's Will Thacker, and the actor looks back on the experience with great fondness.

"It was a very happy time," he says. "I can remember every day of it with real, vivid clarity because it was a happy experience having a a group of people led by Duncan Kenworthy, the producer, and Richard Curtis, who wrote this glorious script, and Roger Michell who was such a wonderful director.

"I think I've got one particular memory, a scene that's not even in the film, of all of us walking down Portobello —the group of friends— and I remember there was a shopkeeper who started throwing eggs at us.

"They'd all been paid hassle money for the having their trade interrupted for a few hours while we filmed, nevertheless this shopkeeper thought it would be hilarious to throw eggs. He wasn't cross, he just thought it might be entertaining, but that's sort of the character of Notting Hill as a place."

He goes on: "From a filmmaking point of view, after each take Roger would come up to each of us and give us a note or an idea about how we were delivering the lines or the rhythm of the scene, and he did it with such individual attention so that the way he'd give a note to me would be completely different to the way that Gina McKee would take a note, or Tim McInnerny, or Hugh Grant.

"He just had this great capacity as a director, having come from the theatre, of knowing how to pull the faders up and down on each performance, and that was a great thing to observe, and it was a very happy shoot."

Why Vicar of Dibley is a 'magical' show

He may be well known for his work in Downton Abbey, but Bonneville starred in another British TV classic: The Vicar of Dibley as a guest star in the show's final episode The Vicar in White as a priest still in love with Dawn French's Geraldine Granger.

"People forget that Vicar of Dibley has only got something like 22 episodes, 21 or 22 episodes, and of course, it became so beloved," Bonneville reflects.

"[It starred] the late and wonderful Emma Chambers was an old mate of mine from drama school, and we'd been in Notting Hill together, and obviously Richard [Curtis] had created the show, I'd worked with Dawn before on a thing called Murder Most Horrid.

"I felt very honoured to come into that wonderfully loved group of characters just for that last episode and to play this slightly dotty vicar who's still got the hots for [Geraldine] from their training college days. In fact, one of my fondest memories was at the wrap party watching Trevor Peacock dancing with Emma Chambers, both of them now sadly gone but wonderful people."

Downton Abbey 3 is the 'best' film of the franchise

One of the actor's most beloved roles is that of Robert Crawley in Downton Abbey, a show so beloved it has now been turned into several hit films — with a third on the way, which Bonneville thinks is the best one yet.

"For my character, I think the usual [can be expected], which is that he's a sort of dinosaur trying to be led into the future reluctantly, and then eventually he stumbles forward a bit," Bonneville teases. "As always, there's that rhythm of things changing with glacial slowness, and Robert finally accepting that things [are changing] — it's time to to to move the story on, so to speak.

"It's got the usual tropes, if you like, of thrills and spills in a very Downtown way, which means spilling a tea cup pretty much!

"But, I think, people who've watched the show over the years and have loved it will miss Maggie Smith's presence. She doesn't step out of the shower and it's all been a dream, she is gone. There's so much warmth and fun to enjoy, and new elements as well —which I won't spoil— that I think it'll certainly be the best iteration of the film versions yet."

It still surprises Bonneville that the franchise has become as beloved as it has since the TV show first premiered in 2010: "It never ceases to amaze me, it did when it first started in 2010 and here we are, 14 years later, we're making a third movie. At least one of our producers said, 'well, it's never gonna last beyond seven episodes anyway so don't lose too much sleep about this', and here we are all those years later still together.

"What's been really interesting is there's a whole new generation of people watching it and still finding it engaging... I'm not complaining because it's been a wonderful part of my life and we're filming the third film at the moment, and it's a lovely coming together of people I care deeply about, and that's just the fictional characters."

The third Downton Abbey film will see the original cast return including Michelle Dockery, Elizabeth McGovern, Jim Carter and Laura Carmichael, but it will be the first of the franchise not to feature Dame Maggie Smith, who played the beloved matriarch Violet Crawley, Dowager Countess of Grantham.

Reflecting on filming the character's death in 2022's A New Era, Bonneville shares: "It came home to me quite early that this was the last time I'd probably have a scene with this woman, who'd been my screen mum for all these years.

"I went through a mental rolodex of all the characters I've been aware of in my life that she'd played from Desdemona with Laurence Olivier to the lead character in Three Tall Women... these great iconic roles that had meant so much to a generation of theatre and filmgoers, and I'd had this extraordinary position of being her screen son for all these years.

"So it really hit home that day that this was coming to an end, it was a very special day actually, and I'm sure I wasn't alone in finding it a very moving experience."

Making Poirot with David Suchet was a rewarding experience

One of Bonneville's other rewarding roles was being part of the guest cast for ITV's Poirot series, which starred David Suchet as Hercule Poirot. The actor speaks very highly of the actor, who he starred opposite in the 2010 adaptation of Murder on the Orient Express.

"He is legendary for nailing that dialogue, so much of the structure of those stories is the denouement where he reveals how he knows who done it, and it was a master class in technique," Bonneville says of Suchet who he adds was remarkable at "leading from the front".

"His courtesy to all the actors on set was fantastic, and also I thought the production values were terrific and it was just a wonderful ensemble of people. We had Jessica Chastain, David Morrissey, Toby Jones, a wonderful array of British talent and superbly directed by Phillip Martin.

"I think it stands up there alongside many of the the big screen Poirots that there have been."

Bonneville's former RSC cast mate Branagh has famously taken on the Poirot mantle (or should we say moustache) from Suchet, playing the character in three films so far: Murder on the Orient Express, Death on the Nile, and A Haunting in Venice.

When asked if he'd like to reunite with Branagh in one of his star-studded Hollywood Poirot productions, Bonneville was adamant as he says: "Oh my goodness. I mean, I'd walk over hot coals to work with Ken."

Watching Matt Smith play the Doctor convinced him he can never play the Time Lord

Bonneville may be starring opposite Karen Gillan in a Steven Moffat production in Douglas is Cancelled, but he did so once before in Doctor Who. The actor played a pirate during Matt Smith's tenure as the Doctor in the episode The Curse of the Black Spot, and being part of the iconic sci-fi series came with an unexpected revelation.

He explains: "I remember we had a read through and it was the end of [the day] that they were shooting a previous episode, and Matt and Karen came in looking absolutely exhausted because those days on the set, particularly for Matt, and the energy he had to bring to it were absolutely punishing.

"And we did a rehearsal read through and his leadership and his energy was exemplary, and I realised then and there that I could never play Doctor Who because I'd never have that much energy or the capacity to retain so much fantastical dialogue as as he did."

"But Karen and Matt were wonderfully welcoming," he adds. "And we went and did a few very cold nights filming on a ship down in Cornwall, I think probably with rain machines and with a bit of brandy at the end of the night to try and keep us warm. But they were great hosts for a guest artist like me."

Twenty Twelve and W1A was the 'hardest job' he's ever done

Twenty Twelve was made in the lead up to the 2012 Olympics and imagined what the games could have been like in a sitcom world, something that Bonneville found compelling enough to lead alongside Jessica Hynes, who he then reunited with in follow-up W1A.

"It was quite interesting because there was a cynicism in the air that Britain was going to absolutely embarrass itself and not be able to do this, and so that was sort of the backdrop for Twenty Twelve the show," he says.

"I was there on Super Saturday, I got tickets in the ballot, and it was probably —and I mean this seriously— the last time I felt that Britain felt properly united and it was proud of itself, it was united at that point."

"When I went to see the Olympics, [a] number of volunteers came and tapped me on the shoulder and said you didn't see the half of it," he adds. "Even Danny Boyle apparently said, 'did you have cameras in our meetings?' I believe he took the box set away, well after the event, and he sort of cringed watching it, saying it was too close to home."

Reflecting on W1A, he adds: "The credit is all due to John Morton who wrote and directed both iterations and he has a very particular writing style... it's a piece of music, every umm is scripted. So it's really, really hard to learn.

"The cast of Twenty Twelve had morphed into W1A, and the way we bonded was in between each scene instead of going and sitting and having a cup of coffee we sat there running the lines because it was filmed at such pace and with such delicately scripted overlaps that we didn't want to let John down.

"We became almost like a theatre troupe... it was probably the the hardest job I've ever done, and I always swore I'd never go back and do any more but when I see the finished result and see how superb the overall show was, I felt very proud of it."

The Monuments Men director George Clooney is 'legendary'

The actor has had the chance to work with some great directors over the years, but the one who is by far the most famous has to be George Clooney, who directed 2014's The Monuments Men. The film followed members of the Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives program who saved and preserved art before Nazis could destroy them during the Second World War.

Bonneville plays 2nd Lieutenant Donald Jeffries, and the actor admits when he was cast in the film he was surprised by how many big names were on the call sheet: "I remember the night before my first scene I looked at the call sheet and it read something like George Clooney, Bob Balaban, and Jean Dujardin, John Goodman, Matt Damon, Bill Murray — I couldn't believe it.

"It's great icons right there, and me. But, of course, as soon as you get on a film set with actors however big they are as star names they're just actors who wear underpants like you, so it was a great experience. George is legendary as a director in the same way that Clint Eastwood is, he's just good to people and finishes early, which of course crews love.

"He'd always say I've got that scene we don't need to do any more on it, [he was] incredibly gracious and courteous to other departments, so that you never felt he was bulldozing anyone and would depend on the skill sets of everybody on that set because we are fortunate in our industry to have amazing talent in all departments, and when those departments are entrusted to do their job they excel.

"George was great with the design team and each department, allowing them to flourish, and so I felt very proud to be part of that collective as well."

Hugh Grant 'should have won an Oscar for Paddington 2'

Another film franchise Bonneville is well known for is the Paddington films, the second of which saw him reunite with his Notting Hill co-star Hugh Grant who played villain Phoenix Buchanan, a washed-up actor keen to find fame and fortune again.

It was a very different role for Grant, but one that has proven his skills in the camp villain roles that he has thrived in since. Bonneville loved it so much he feels Grant deserved an Oscar for his "absolutely fantastic" final dance sequence.

He explains: “I gathered yesterday they only took one day to film it," he reflects. "He was taught to tap dance once and he pulled it off with such a plum and flare. He was delicious in the film. I think he should have won an Oscar for it, but there we are.”

“When we were rehearsing it up at the studio we calculated it was 19 years since we've been in a rehearsal room together," Bonneville goes on to say about Grant. "So that made us both feel quite senior.

“This sounds deeply patronising coming from somebody younger than him, but he's developed into this amazing character actor. Everything from the Jeremy Thorpe role [in A Very English Scandal] to The Gentleman, to his performance in this.

“He was great, he grabbed it by the throat and really had fun with it and some of the funniest lines that he came up with that are in the script, or they're in the finished film, are his, and he was a joy.”

The franchise continues with Paddington in Peru, which Bonneville teased will be just as fun as the previous films: “Antonio Banderas is this Fitzcarraldo-type adventurer who runs a river boat and takes the Brown family up river and we've got Olivia Coleman as the Reverend Mother who runs the home for retired bears where we've all gone, now that Paddington has his passport, to visit Aunt Lucy.

"But when we arrive we discover that she herself has gone off on an adventure, so we must go and find her. So it's a quest to find Aunt Lucy, and it's glorious. It's full of all the fun and adventure that the first two films had and, as you'd expect, with an enormous heart and a lot of marmalade!”

How The Gold's real-life events changed Britain

As well as work in beloved dramas, Bonneville has forayed into true crime territory with BBC's The Gold, which examines the events of the 1983 Brink's-Mat robbery and its aftermath. In it, the actor plays DCI Brian Boyce, a man Bonneville says was a fascinating man to meet for the show.

"He's a man in his 80s now, but very fit, very smart and we've had lunch a couple of times just to talk through [things]," Bonneville shares. "I wanted to understand how he ran his team and the the sort of tone and temperature that he used as a team leader, and he was an inspiring man to listen to.

"A proper old school policeman who believes that police should be the servants of society and was pretty disappointed in some of his colleagues who were corrupt or turned a blind eye to things. He was a man of great principle, and so it was a privilege to get to meet him and to learn a bit about his own experience on the case."

Reflecting on the series itself, he adds: "Reading the script and then reading up about it, you realise what an extraordinary impact it had as an event on British society and that the money that was eventually laundered from the smelted gold has had an effect on society ever since.

"In the first season we explored how the chain of events occurred, or rather, what happened to the gold, at each stage of the process, until the money was laundered — a huge amount went into the building of the Docklands."

Teasing the forthcoming second season, he adds: "In the second season we discover ostensibly where the other half of the gold went, or where some more of the money ended up in the Caribbean and in Tenerife with the whole timeshare schemes that John Palmer was organising.

"And as he got bigger, bigger fish came into play and he started to launder huge amounts and was involved in bringing the first wave of ecstasy into Britain. This one incident had a huge ripple effect through society."

Gillan 'terrific' to work with in Douglas is Cancelled

The actor is now set to appear in ITV's Douglas is Cancelled, a four-part satire written by Steven Moffat and co-starring Karen Gillan which begins with its titular premise: TV presenter Douglas (Bonneville) is accused of making a sexist joke at a wedding and races to keep a lid on things, seemingly with the help of his co-presenter Madeleine (Gillan). But then it delves into much darker territory as it examines toxic workplaces, the MeToo movement and more.

For Bonneville it was "very interesting" to see the avenues that the series took: "This is a competitive, ugly, dark world that [Madeleine] has entered and there are perhaps reasons why she behaves as she does. It makes you ask questions about yourself, like all good satires.

"The laughter freezes and you start to question your own attitudes, what would one do given the certain situations that are put in front of the audience and what is the right thing to do? It delves into the whole MeToo world as well, but through the prism of this very publicly spotlit environment of two presenters."

The series hinges on the dynamic between Gillan and Bonneville, and the actor is full of praise for his. co-star's approach to the role: "She's fantastic, having seen her on Doctor Who I knew she had a great work ethic, but it's a Titanic part that she plays in this. It's a really strong, big character and, again, as it goes on she really comes centre stage and holds the show.

"Episode 3 and 4, they shift in tone quite significantly and episode 4 particularly is a head-to-head between me and her, and her precision and her talent... she was terrific to work with because she doesn't play for any sympathy, she just plays it straight down the line.

"I think that has more impact as we get to the end and learn more about why she is like she is."

Douglas is Cancelled is out in full on ITVX, and will air at 9pm on ITV1.