Emmy Contenders: ‘Downton Abbey’ Stars Joanne Froggatt, Lesley Nicol Talk Show’s Epic Run

It lasted for six seasons and spanned almost 20 years, from the sinking of the Titanic to the first murmurs of a new menace rising in Germany. It garnered 58 Emmy nominations in its first five seasons, winning 12 times and setting a record as the most-honored foreign show ever. It gave Maggie Smith dozens of quotable lines, made stars out of little-known British actors and gave its creator, writer Julian Fellowes, a calling card even more impressive than the Oscar he won for Gosford Park.
And now “Downton Abbey” is over, although the hint of what seems to be an all-but-inevitable movie hangs over everyone involved in the series. “This was a once-in-a-lifetime kind of a job,” actress Lesley Nicol, who played the cook Mrs. Patmore, told TheWrap. “Hopefully we’ll all have many more exciting jobs to do, but something like ‘Downton’ won’t come around again.”
Nicol said she knew the show about the family and servants on a British estate in the early decades of the 20th century was a phenomenon when she was on a farm in rural China, and the farmer turned to her interpreter and said, “Is that the lady from ‘Downton Abbey’?”