article_snippet.sent: TV insiders were left broken-hearted when writer Julian Fellowes announced that the next series of Downton Abbey would be the last.
article_snippet.sent: TV insiders say Hugh Bonneville, who plays Lord Grantham in Downton, and Lily James, who plays Lady Rose in the show and who stars in the new Disney cinema hit Cinderella, would be ideal as Trollope's 1858 novel Doctor Thorne and Mary.
article_snippet.sent: But one source last night said that ITV would be keen to ensure that the cast of the new drama was not filled with faces from Downton.
article_snippet.sent: TV critics want Hugh Bonneville, who plays Lord Grantham in Downton, to appear in the show .
article_snippet.sent: Several actresses, including Anna Chancellor, who made a guest appearance in the last series of Downton Abbey, Juliet Stevenson and Janet McTeer could all be likely contenders for the role of the snobbish Lady Arabella.
article_snippet.sent: Fellowes revealed that many of the characters in Downton Abbey and Fellowes Oscar-winning 2001 film Gosford Park had been inspired by Trollope.
article_snippet.sent: Fellowes said Gosford Park's Lady Trentham and Downton's Dowager Countess of Grantham – both played by Maggie Smith – were very similar to Doctor Thorne's Lady Arabella, and that Gosford's imperious Lady Sylvia, played by Kristin Scott Thomas, was a 'classic' from a Trollope novel.
highlights_snippet.sent: TV insiders say Hugh Bonneville, who plays Lord Grantham in Downton and Lily James would be ideal as Trollope's 1858 novel Doctor Thorne and Mary .