Hugh Bonneville promises 'new elements' and 'thrills and spills' in Downton Abbey 3

Watch: Hugh Bonneville calls Downton Abbey 3 the best film yet

Downton Abbey made some big changes on the big screen with 2022's A New Era, but Robert Crawley star Hugh Bonneville assures Yahoo UK that the upcoming third film will be even bigger and better than anything that has come before it.

Speaking with Yahoo UK for a Role Recall interview, the actor shares that the film feels like a "lovely coming together of people". Fans will be rivetted by what is to come for Robert and the Crawley family because the film is full of "spills and thrills" according to Bonneville, who took a break from production to promote his new ITV series Douglas is Cancelled.

"For my character, I think the usual [can be expected], which is that he's a sort of dinosaur trying to be led into the future reluctantly, and then eventually he stumbles forward a bit," Bonneville teases.

"So as always, there's that rhythm of things changing with glacial slowness, and Robert finally accepting that things [are changing] — it's time to move the story on, so to speak. It's got the usual tropes, if you like, of thrills and spills in a very Downtown way, which means spilling a tea cup pretty much!

"People who've watched the show over the years and have loved it will miss Maggie Smith's presence. She doesn't step out of the shower and it's all been a dream, she is gone.

"But, I think there's so much warmth and fun to enjoy, and new elements as well — which I won't spoil — that I think it'll certainly be the best iteration of the film versions yet."

Read more: Everything we know about Downton Abbey 3

The third Downton Abbey film premieres in cinemas on 12 September, 2025, and will see the original cast return including Michelle Dockery, Elizabeth McGovern, Jim Carter and Laura Carmichael, while A New Era's Dominic West will also reprise his role as Guy Dexter. They will be joined by a host of new characters played by Paul Giamatti, Joely Richardson, Simon Russell Beale, and Alessandro Nivola.

Details of the story have not yet been revealed, but Bonneville's positivity about it seems like a good sign. The actor also spoke of how it still surprises him that the franchise has become as beloved as it has since the show first premiered in 2010 because it didn't originally seem like it would.

"It never ceases to amaze me, it did when it first started in 2010 and here we are, 14 years later, we're making a third movie," he explains. "At least one of our producers said, 'well, it's never gonna last beyond seven episodes anyway so don't lose too much sleep about this', and here we are all those years later still together.

"What's been really interesting is there's a whole new generation of people watching it and still finding it engaging, and also what's been rather touching, particularly over the pandemic, [was] when people were stuck at home and they revisited a show that had finished five years before.

"Each of us have had lots of letters from people saying: 'I used to watch it with my Gran', or 'my son who is now married', or 'my husband, who's now passed on', or whatever. It had an emotional resonance for the period of time that it was on, and people find comfort in it, and revisited it like a warm bath.

"I'm not complaining because it's been a wonderful part of my life and we're filming the third film at the moment, it's a lovely coming together of people I care deeply about, and that's just the fictional characters."

Downton Abbey 3 will be released in cinemas on 12 September, 2025, the series and movies are available to watch on ITVX, Netflix and Prime Video.

Douglas is Cancelled is out now on ITVX and will air weekly on ITV1, and our Role Recall interview with Hugh Bonneville is also out now in full.