Upstairs, Downstairs - Imelda & Jim's Limitless Love

Imelda Staunton joins her husband Jim Carter in the Downton Film – and takes on Dame Maggie Smith’s Dowager Countess.

- Frances Hardy

You might imagine Imelda Staunton – who so convincingly inhabits the dark, tortured characters she often plays – would be melancholic.

Actually, what strikes people in reality is her sheer capacity for joy. Her default mode is cheerful, her delight in life childlike.

“Look at me! They’ve turned me into some kind of model,” she says with a laugh as she teeters around in the floaty dress and high heels chosen for her photoshoot today. “You’d think I was sophisticated, but then I start walking and I’m like a four-year-old in her mum’s shoes.” She mock-staggers in her stilettos.

Imelda, who is so tiny and fine-boned she’s almost doll-like, is thrilled too by the house and garden we’re shooting in. She marvels at the hand-painted walls. She trips out to look at the plants.

Then she summons her husband – actor Jim Carter, the lovable, lugubrious butler Carson of Downton Abbey – to drive over from their house nearby in north-west London to see it.

Imelda (63) and Jim (71) have P H been married for 36 years.

“We’re very fortunate because we still enjoy each other’s company,” she says. “We get very excited about going away for a couple of days together. It’s never, ‘Yeah, if you wanna,’” she says in an affected bored voice.

In the hall, Jim’s familiar rumbling baritone announces his arrival. Both he and Imelda will be appearing in the much anticipated Downton Abbey film, which opens in New Zealand on September 12. In the movie, Carson, a stalwart of the TV series since 2010, returns from retirement, having miraculously overcome the palsy that forced him to retire, to oversee a visit from King George V and Queen Mary.