Downton Abbey stars before life up and down stairs

Lady Grantham with Brad Pitt, Carson the lion, Mrs Hughes in a mini-dress, Daisy in school uniform: How the Downton set spent their days before they arrived at the Abbey

By MARTHA DE LACEY

PUBLISHED: 20:43, 14 October 2012 | UPDATED: 20:43, 14 October 2012

We're so used to seeing them in period dress that it is, at first, quite tricky to work out who is who.

But once your eyes adjust you'll recognise housekeeper Mrs Hughes, Carson the butler, Lord and Lady Grantham, Matthew Crawley and Daisy the kitchen maid...just not as you know them. At all.

These photographs prove that there was life before ITV's Downton Abbey, and reveals what some of the hit drama series' stars were doing before it appeared on our screens.

Phyllis Logan as housekeeper Elsie Hughes in Downton Abbey, left, and at the Taormina Film Festival in Sicily in 1983, where she won a Best Actress Award for her role in Another Time, Another Place, right

So you'll find Mrs Hughes - aka Phyllis Logan - has stripped out of her high-collared housekeeper's uniform and into a bright yellow floral mini-dress. She can be seen relaxing in a Sicilian garden at the Taormina Film Festival in 1983, having won a Best Actress Award for her role in World War II drama Another Time, Another Place, released in 1982.

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Lady Cora Grantham - played by Elizabeth McGovern - looks serene in her lady-of-the-abbey attire and diamond earrings... and much cheekier in a tight black dress with both a string of pearls and Brad Pitt's arm draped around her neck in Donald Petrie's 1994 rom-com The Favor.

Elizabeth McGovern as Lady Cora Grantham in Downton Abbey, left, and with Brad Pitt in The Favor in 1994

You'll also find Hugh Bonneville removed from his seat as Lord of the house and left Holding The Baby in the 1997 comedy series, and Dan Stevens' dapper Matthew Crawley replaced by a beaten prisoner in Sheffied's Crucible Theatre's production of Romans In Britain, directed by Sam West in 2006.

And it's impossible not to be delighted by both Sophie McShera - that's Daisy the kitchen maid to you Downton fans - in her Waterloo Road school uniform in 2009, and, of course, Carson the butler (actor Jim Carter) as the cowardly lion in the Royal Shakespeare Company's 1987 theatrical production of the Wizard of Oz.

Hugh Bonneville as Robert Crawley, Earl of Grantham, in Downton Abbey, left, and in TV comedy series Holiding The Baby in 1997, right

Dan Stevens as Matthew Crawley in Downton Abbey, left, and performing in The Romans In Britain at Sheffield's Crucible Theatre in 2006, right

Sophie McShera as Daisy the kitchen maid in ITV's Downton Abbey, left, and in Waterloo Road in 2009, left

Jim Carter as Charles Carson the butler in Downton Abbey. left, and as the cowardly lion in the Royal Shakespeare Company's production of The Wizard of Oz at the Barbican in 1987

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2216676/Donwton-Abbey-Early-jobs-Hugh-Bonneville-Elizabeth-McGovern-Jim-Carter-Phyllis-Logan.html#ixzz29JxMhQEH
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