What Dan Stevens Is Up To After ‘Downton Abbey’
Dan Stevens owes his international success to the insanely popular period drama Downton Abbey, although he was no stranger to the small screens in the UK prior to taking the role of Matthew Crawley.
But his success grew exponentially after he became part of the award winning series, and not only in his native United Kingdom. His name is now recognized all over the world, not only because of his handsome looks, but due to the quality in his acting and lovely personaltiy.
In an interview with the British publication The Telegraph he discusses his move to New York and his current and future projects.
Dan discusses the beginning of his interest in performing and drama. He says that when he was fourteen he attended an audition for Macbeth and to his surprise got the titular role.
The man responsible for casting him was his English teacher, Jonathan Smith who wrote novels. At that time he had just published his latest one, Summer in February, the story of Sir Alfred Munnings’s tangled love life during his time at a painters’ retreat on the south coast of Cornwall, England.
Stevens thought that it would make a good movie. Funny how things work out in life, seventeen years later he has been part of doing just that. Summer in February is one of Dan’s new films and is set to open in the UK next Friday, June 14.
Dan says he is just returning the favor since he credits Smith for nurturing his love of literature and drama while at Tonbridge School in Kent. He also encouraged him to apply for Cambridge University.
Cambridge led him to the Flashlights and during that time he caught the eye of legendary director Sir Peter Hall who brought him on board his theater company. This all led to stints on BBC period pieces, the most famous of which is the adaptation of Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility in 2008.
This ultimately opened the door to play working man Matthew Crawley in Downton Abbey in 2010. There he remained for three seasons until the shocking end to his character in season three.
After this he came to Broadway to play opposite Jessica Chastain in The Heiress. He also has a part on A Walk Among The Tombstones with Liam Neeson, which is scheduled for sometime in 2014.
Dan also stars in The Fifth Estate in which he plays a journalist alongside another hot name in British TV and big screen, Benedict Cumberbatch. The film is about WikiLeaks’ founder Julian Assange.
For now the actor seems to be happy leaving a family life in Brooklyn together with his wife Susie and two young children Willow and Aubrey ages three and just one. “Brooklyn’s very family-friendly where we are,” he says, “but it’s strange to think that we’ve been out here for almost a year. We came last summer when I had the play and then I got a film straight after, so we decided to stick around.”
We don’t know what the future will bring for Dan Stevens, the only sure thing is that we haven’t heard the last from him.
[Image via lev radin / Shutterstock.com]
