Respect is due Julian Fellowes, who as a prolific writer has conquered TV with Emmy-winning “Downton Abbey,” film with “Gosford Park,” which earned him an Oscar, and theater with “School of Rock — The Musical,” a Tony Award nominee. So which author does he most admire?
Anthony Trollope, at least among the 19th century’s array of superstar novelists that includes Jane Austen and Charles Dickens.
Fellowes has fulfilled his goal of adapting Trollope for the screen with “Doctor Thorne,” a four-part series debuted Friday on digital screening service Amazon. The Weinstein Co. production stars the versatile and remarkable Tom Hollander (“The Night Manager,” “Mission Impossible-Rogue Nation”) in the title role, with Stefanie Martini as Mary, the physician’s adored niece.
“Doctor Thorne” marks Fellowes’ first TV series to air since the end of “Downton Abbey.”
In an interview from London with The Associated Press, Fellowes discusses how he sees the past and what he’s working on for the future.
Why is Trollope a favorite of yours?
There is something about Trollope’s voice that I have always found very appealing. He has a kind of mercy, a sort of non-judgmental quality which actually I find very modern. None of his characters are all bad or all good. And even his heroines make mistakes, which in Dickens you never get.
How is “Gilded Age” coming along?
I’m trying to clear my decks of everything else, because when I start “Gilded Age” I don’t want to be writing it with three other things going on at the same time. At the moment, I’m up to my neck in research.
You’ve done several popular projects set in earlier periods. What is the appeal for you and the audience?
I also enjoy doing contemporary stuff, I enjoyed “School of Rock.” But there is something about letting people understand that people in the past were just men and women with ambitions and emotions that are much the same as our own. Obviously, in a different social context or slightly different political system, but nevertheless the impulses that made them get up in the morning, made them cry or laugh, were much the same as with us.
Is a “Downtown Abbey” movie, which has been discussed, still possible?
I think it would be a good idea and I think it would be fun for the audience. As far as I’m concerned, I’m in. But I’m not the one who makes the decision.
