Time Traveller

She’s famed for a ’20s bob and flapper dresses on Downton Abbey. So who would have guessed MICHELLE DOCKERY’s secret fashion fetish is grunge?

- Laura Brown

LAURA BROWN: So here you are, in Burlington, Massachusetts.

MICHELLE DOCKERY: I am.

LB: You’re shooting Defending Jacob, one of the new series for Apple TV+, with Chris Evans. It’s a thriller?

MD: Yes, and I am physically defending Jacob, my son. This show is based on William Landay’s novel Defending Jacob. It’s a really different genre for me.

LB: Do you have a Boston accent?

MD: I don’t. But I’m hearing a lot of Boston accents, which is a hard accent. I am glad I don’t have to do one. Lately, I seem to be playing Americans all the time.

LB: Well, you only need to play one English person, and you do that quite well.

MD: It was funny—I’d been so used to playing Americans that when we filmed Downton Abbey [the movie, out now], I think [my character] Lady Mary started off being a little too posh.

LB: Did you walk in going like [in American accent], “Hey, guys, it’s Mary?”

MD: [Laughing, saying in an American accent] “Hey, it’s Mary.”

LB: How has it been working with Captain America [Chris Evans]?

MD: Chris is one of my favorite people. The content of the show is very intense. We are playing the parents of a boy who has been accused of this awful murder of a boy his age in his school. But Chris is a laugh, and we share the same sense of humor, so it’s so brilliant to work with him.

LB: And he has a shield!

MD: And he has a shield.

LB: Did you have to re-acclimatize to playing Lady Mary? How many years had it been since you left the set?