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New cast members for Downton Abbey

LONDON — Richard E Grant and Anna Chancellor are joining the cast of Downton Abbey as the drama returns for a fifth series. Grant will play Simon Bricker, who visits Downton as a guest of the Granthams.

Richard E Grant. Photo: Reuters

Richard E Grant. Photo: Reuters

LONDON — Richard E Grant and Anna Chancellor are joining the cast of Downton Abbey as the drama returns for a fifth series. Grant will play Simon Bricker, who visits Downton as a guest of the Granthams.

Asked in 2012 why he had not been invited to join Dame Maggie Smith and Hugh Bonneville in the aristocratic drama, Grant replied: “I have no idea. I know Julian, but I was never asked. I’ve never been up for it. Maybe next series.”

Grant will appear in several episodes of the new series. The programme-makers are keeping details of his characters under wraps, but the 56-year-old actor said recently that he is never cast as a romantic hero.

“When you’re born with a 10ft-long face, you don’t get hero roles. But I’m not complaining as I have hugely enjoyed the wide variety of parts I’ve got to play,” he said.

His plummy tones seem ideally suited to Downton. He has said: “I would love to play your common, everyday guy, but I never get cast as that. It would be fun to play a chav and chav it up, but I can’t see it ever happening.”

Grant’s recent roles include a guest spot in Doctor Who and playing Michael Heseltine in The Iron Lady. This will not be his first appearance in an upstairs-downstairs drama: He played a footman in Robert Altman’s Oscar-winning, Gosford Park, which was also scripted by Julian Fellowes.

The fifth series of Downton will also feature Anna Chancellor, the actress best known for her role as Duckface in Four Weddings And A Funeral. She will play a character called Lady Anstruther. One of the new storylines will involve a Russian refugee who fled to Britain after the revolution. He will be played by the Serbian actor Rade Sherbedgia.

Dame Maggie Smith will return as the Dowager Countess alongside the other regular cast members.

Fellowes has indicated that season five may be the last. “I don’t know yet if there is a season six, but it’s not going to go on forever. It won’t be Perry Mason.” THE DAILY TELEGRAPH

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