Hugh Bonneville has revealed that one sharp one-liner from Dame Maggie Smith remains his least favourite in Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale.
In one scene, Bonneville, who plays Robert Crawley, Lord Grantham, repeats one of Smith’s famous lines as Violet Crawley, the Dowager Countess.
While talking to Michelle Dockery’s Lady Mary, he says, "The weekend — I'm glad Mama isn't alive to hear you say that word.”
The moment is funny and touching, but the 61-year-old English actor told Entertainment Weekly that he actually hated the line.
Bonneville quipped, "It's my least favorite line in the movie, and I was hoping it was gonna be cut.”
He stated it was not because he thought the line was not funny but because it felt hard to live up to Smith's memory. “How can you quote Maggie? She did it so iconically,” the Paddington star said.
Notably, Bonneville went on to share that he held back due to the great respect he has for the late Smith.
"We were very lucky to work with one of the greatest actresses of her generation. For me to have been able to call her 'mummy' on and off for 15 years was a great privilege. She was one of a kind, and I feel very blessed to have been in her orbit for a while,” the Notting Hill actor explained.