Link to translation of full article – GQ France

Tonight’s instalment of Downton Abbey might just see Lady Mary getting hot under her lacy collar.
Yep, after a string of episodes which have seen her frown, pout, play around with pigs and witness other people’s nuptials, romance could well be back on the cards. Because Henry Talbot is back…
Don’t remember him? He’s only the charming, quick witted and rather good looking chap Mary bumped into at Brancaster during the Christmas episode.
“When it comes to romance there’s not much going on in that department, until Henry Talbot turns up,” says Michelle Dockery. “He’s happens to be the nephew of Lady Shackleton, so that’s how we comes in to the story.”

It’s not like they’ll be skipping off down the aisle soon. (Mary’s not one to make hasty romantic decisions, after all…) But he is basically Mary’s perfect man, asides from the fact that he has never money nor social standing…

“Mary was instantly attracted to Henry at the end of series five. He intrigues her but she’s put off by his lifestyle and the fact that he’s a racing car driver,” Dockery explains. “His lack of wealth is a bit of an issue but it’s mainly his racing that is getting in the way because of how she lost Matthew.

“But she’s a rebel at heart and Henry is also a rebel and she’s attracted to that in him,” she adds.

So what can we expect from this Sunday’s episode?

According to the show, “a flirtation between him and Mary strikes up when he comes to Downton as a guest of his aunt.”

“Without money or position, Henry struggles to persuade Mary to consider him as the next love of her life, but he is in fact more in control of their relationship than Mary would care to admit, even to herself.”

We’d better start shopping for a hat…

Downton Abbey continues on Sundays at 9:00pm on ITV

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Turns out The Good Wife will be downtwo full-time cast members when it returns this fall: Matthew Goode will not be back as a series regular in Season 7, TVLine has learned exclusively.

Goode’s exit follows the departure of Archie Panjabi, who made her final appearance as Kalinda in the May 10 finale. However, while it’s unlikely Panjabi will resurface in the near future, I’m told there’s a chance Goode could make a guest appearance or two.

Goode joined The Good Wife as attorney Finn Polmar during the second half of Season 5, in the wake of Josh Charles’ swan song as Will. He returned this past season as a full-fledged regular.

The actor’s status change was hinted at in the aforementioned season-ender, which saw Finn reject Alicia’s (Julianna Margulies) offer to join her nascent law firm.

Don’t feel badly for Goode though. The British thesp will return (in a big way, apparently) to Downton Abbey as Henry Talbot for the PBS phenom’s forthcoming sixth and final season.

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After almost two series of flitting between Tony Gillingham and Charles Blake’s affections, Lady Mary is finally moving on.

Tonight’s Downton Abbey Christmas special saw Matthew Goode star as a friend of the Atticus family Henry Talbot. And he looks like he has the potential to be Mary’s next squeeze.

The eldest Crawley sister, who has been more than a little unlucky-in-love of late, was introduced to dashing gentleman Henry Talbot while shooting with Lady Rose’s new in-laws. He then spun her around the dancefloor with ease before impressing her by seeing straight through her plan to save Sinderby from Barrow’s scheming.

So Talbot is handsome, sharp and clever. He can keep up with Mary’s wit and dry one-liners AND he drives a “snappy chariot”.

As far as we’re concerned he is a much better match for Mary than Gillingham or Blake. But what do you think?

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Benedict Cumberbatch is justifiably getting most of the attention for his performance as Enigma Code breaker Alan Turing in The Imitation Game. But he gets solid support from some of the UK’s best actors, many of whom play other cryptologists working in secret at Bletchley Park to crack the code and thus help end the Second World War.

For Matthew Goode, who plays Hugh Alexander, a world-class chess champion brought in to lead the Bletchley team, the role posed a challenge. How do you create a real character when so much about the man is still classified information?

“Most of us struggled to find stuff out about our characters,” says Goode during the film’s busy press day at TIFF.

“Benedict had more to draw upon, because there’s more stuff written down, but I didn’t find out a huge amount about Hugh. The remaining people who had worked at Bletchley didn’t want to talk about it. That’s amazing, because they weren’t military people; they were civilians who gave up huge amounts of time and effort in their lives. Seventy years later, there’s still this spirit of its being a national secret.”

Goode’s suave, flirtatious Alexander is very different from the asocial, nearly autistic Turing, and the actor – who comes across as an extrovert in conversation – enjoyed that contrast.

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When Matthew Goode, who stars as Benedict Cumberbatch’s dapper rival in The Imitation Game, suggests that we get an 11 A.M. drink at The Egg Shop on New York’s Lower East Side, I’m impressed. Rarely, if ever, do the guys we feature in this column select the establishment. And a pre-noon cocktail hour? Also noteworthy.

And rarer yet is the subject who, upon your arrival, is found hunched over a plate of sunny side ups at the bar. If it weren’t for the shockingly blue eyes peeking out from behind a pair of smart lenses, I might have easily mistaken him for a handsome regular. And no wonder: Not only does Goode live nearby with his family—actress Sophie Dymoke and daughters Matilda, 5, and Teddy, 14 months—the establishment’s proprietor also introduced the actor to his wife. So, aside from a pub in Hampstead where he likes to hole up with famous buds ranging from Benedict Cumberbatch to Dominic West, this is about as close to home turf as one can get.

Toward the end of the drink, our mouths newly aflame from the homemade hot sauce in our early bird beverages, I ask him what the deal is with British guys being noticeably standoffish in social settings, anyway. He pauses a moment to think and then narrows his eyes, which have started to pick up flecks of the early winter sun flooding in through the tiny shop’s glass doors. “What British women have figured out is that we lower our standards when we’re drunk,” he says. “So some women just go, ‘Oh. He’s mine!’ And we just go, ‘Okay!'” I hold myself back, but everything in my being is going, He’sminehe’sminehe’sminehe’smine.

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After months flitting between two eligible bachelors, fans of Downton Abbey may have hoped Lady Mary was about to finally settle down to find true love.

But it appears another handsome gentleman is soon to waltz into her life, as actor Matthew Goode joins the cast for a Christmas special.

Goode, who has already starred in period dramas including Dancing on the Edge and Death Comes to Pemberley, is expected to play a potential new beau for Lady Mary, after her long dalliance with aristocrats Charles Blake and Lord Gillingham.

The final episode of this series appeared to be leading up to a decision between the two, after storylines involving pre-marital sex and a love rival.

The Christmas special, however, promises yet further twists to the Crawley family’s love lives, with new arrival Goode, who is rumoured to have been spotted in filming already.

Goode has just starred with Downton’s Allen Leech, who plays character Tom Branson, in The Imitation Game, the Alan Turing biopic featuring Benedict Cumberbatch and Keira Knightly.

A spokesman for Downton has now confirmed: “Matthew Goode will appear in the Christmas episode as a guest character.”

This week, ITV finally confirmed the much-anticipated sixth series of the show will go ahead, suggesting Sunday’s finale will leave running storylines far from neatly tied up.

Aside from Lady Mary’s love triangle, fans of the show are waiting for the resolution of dilemmas from Lady Edith’s secret child to the murder investigation shining a spotlight on Anna and Mr Bates.

Preview pictures from the show capture the married couple behind bars, with Anna in a police line-up, while Tom makes up his mind whether to flee Downton to make a fresh start in America.

Lord Fellowes, the creator and writer of the drama, has already begun plotting the next series, which will start filming next year.

Cast members will also appear in a charity special, and will be joined by Hollywood actor George Clooney for a sketch in which the Dowager Countess faints after receiving a kis

Source: Telegraph