<P> Smith played Professor Minerva McGonagall in the Harry Potter film series ( 2001 -- 2011 ) . Other notable films include Love and Pain and the Whole Damn Thing ( 1973 ) , Death on the Nile ( 1978 ) , Clash of the Titans ( 1981 ) , Evil Under the Sun ( 1982 ) , Hook ( 1991 ) , Sister Act ( 1992 ) , The Secret Garden ( 1993 ) , The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel ( 2012 ) , and The Lady in the Van ( 2015 ) . She won an Emmy Award in 2003 for My House in Umbria , to become one of the few actresses to have achieved the Triple Crown of Acting , and starred as Lady Violet Crawley , Dowager Countess of Grantham , on Downton Abbey ( 2010 -- 2015 ) , for which she won three Emmys , her first non-ensemble Screen Actors Guild Award , and her third Golden Globe . Her honorary awards include the BAFTA Special Award in 1993 , the BAFTA Fellowship in 1996 , and the Special Olivier Award in 2011 . She received the Stratford Shakespeare Festival 's Legacy Award in 2012 , and the Bodley Medal by the University of Oxford 's Bodleian Libraries in 2016 . </P>
<P> Smith played Professor Minerva McGonagall in the Harry Potter film series ( 2001 -- 2011 ) . Other notable films include Love and Pain and the Whole Damn Thing ( 1973 ) , Death on the Nile ( 1978 ) , Clash of the Titans ( 1981 ) , Evil Under the Sun ( 1982 ) , Hook ( 1991 ) , Sister Act ( 1992 ) , The Secret Garden ( 1993 ) , The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel ( 2012 ) , and The Lady in the Van ( 2015 ) . She won an Emmy Award in 2003 for My House in Umbria , to become one of the few actresses to have achieved the Triple Crown of Acting , and starred as Lady Violet Crawley , Dowager Countess of Grantham , on Downton Abbey ( 2010 -- 2015 ) , for which she won three Emmys , her first non-ensemble Screen Actors Guild Award , and her third Golden Globe . Her honorary awards include the BAFTA Special Award in 1993 , the BAFTA Fellowship in 1996 , and the Special Olivier Award in 2011 . She received the Stratford Shakespeare Festival 's Legacy Award in 2012 , and the Bodley Medal by the University of Oxford 's Bodleian Libraries in 2016 . </P>
who does maggie smith play in downton abbey
who does maggie smith play in downton abbey
Lady Violet Crawley , Dowager Countess of Grantham
Lady Violet Crawley , Dowager Countess of Grantham