'Downton Abbey' Director Talks Mary and Henry's Romantic Moment in the Rain
Warning: This interview contains spoilers about the sixth episode of Downton Abbey’s final season.
Lady Edith isn’t the only one starting a romance in the final season of Downton Abbey. In Sunday’s episode, Lady Mary and Henry Talbot got caught in the rain and ducked for cover — and a beautifully-framed kiss.
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In fact, it was such a gorgeous shot that we wish the kiss would’ve lasted longer so we could’ve appreciated it more. “I always feels like I’ve succeeded when people say that,” director Michael Engler tells Yahoo TV, “because you always leave them wanting more, rather than leaving them wanting less. That said, it was a very satisfying moment, and it was a beautiful location. We made rain in the middle of London, at night, so it was pretty spectacular. Who’s more beautiful than Michelle Dockery and Matthew Goode? So to watch them kissing in the rain, in London, in a beautifully-lit moment like that was pretty wonderful.”
The location was Middle Temple, in the heart of London’s legal quarter. “I’ve been going to London for years, and it’s the first time I ever went in there,” says Engler, a two-time Emmy nominee who was just up for a Directors Guild of America award for helming the Downton series finale. “That’s a pretty magical spot. It’s been used on a lot of other shows because it really does look like a perfect London street. A lot of it is closed off to traffic, and it’s very isolated. It’s a gorgeous and completely unspoiled part of London where you really don’t have to change a thing, except for the occasional electrical outlet or sign that is modern.”
Engler wanted the moment to feel different than those Mary had shared with her late husband, Matthew. “Matthew was such a regular guy, and he brought Mary down to a very regular place, which was what was so beautiful about it. They had such a friendship by the time they ended up together, and they were such real people,” Engler says. “This is a little bit more of a romantic, surprise moment, of that frisson between two people who are very attracted to each other but don’t yet know where it should go, but they take the plunge and have a kiss. I wanted it to feel a little bit more heightened in that way, and so, yeah, I think we succeeded in that.”
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Downton Abbey airs Sundays at 9 p.m. on Masterpiece on PBS.
