Although the Downton Abbey film had everything fans could have wanted from the popular period drama, with plenty of positive outcomes for all of our favourite characters, this almost wasn't the case!
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Rob Collier-James, who plays Thomas Barrow, revealed that his character very nearly had a much sadder ending in regards to his romance with Richard Ellis, a visiting member of the royal household. Chatting to Entertainment Weekly, he explained: "Initially there was an extra scene that's been removed where maybe the ending wasn't as nice, and it was sort of like, tragical Thomas again."
Thomas nearly had a much sadder ending
Chatting to Buzzfeed News, the director of the film, Michael Engler, gave details on the deleted scenes, revealing that despite their attraction, Richard actually had a wife. He said: "Well, there was a scene at the end where Thomas called Ellis and his wife answers the phone. And again, you know, that's a very realistic thing and it doesn't undercut necessarily anything about them.” He added that the scene was cut to give Thomas "some hope and optimism, even though it was a little mixed".
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Rob opened up about why the writers changed their mind
Rob also spoke about how they wanted to make the film more positive as a whole, adding: "They made the decision, even though it was a great scene, to remove that and it was the wise decision. Because it's a movie, it's not as dramatic as the series because you can't have two hours of drama and emotion." Julian Fellowes added: "We felt that Thomas had earned a degree of happiness over the years, and we didn't want to take it away from him."
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