‘Downton Abbey’s’ Julian Fellowes is glad about character’s death

“Downton Abbey” creator Julian Fellowes appeared at a recent event at the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences and to hear him tell it, there won’t be much mourning following one of the series’ most shocking character deaths.

Here’s the part where all “Downton Abbey” fans not completely caught up with the show should click over to some other post.

Fellowes was, of course, speaking of the death of Matthew Crawley (played by Dan Stevens), who died in a car crash at the end of season three. While fans may be sad over the loss of one of their favorite (and sensible) characters, Fellowes is expressing a surprising amount of happiness.

PHOTOS: Behind the scenes of ‘Downton Abbey’

“Originally I thought we would kill Matthew at the beginning of the new series [season 4], but the way things worked out, we didn’t have that option,” Fellowes told the Comcast XfinityTV blog. “Actually, I am quite glad of it now because being away from it for six months, we don’t have to do funerals and all that. [Lady Mary] has had six months to go through the first mourning period. She is still very much in mourning at the beginning of the show. One of the strands of the new series in a way is her learning to rejoin the land of the living.”

Stevens also doesn’t seem to be too dejected about leaving the show that shot him to fame. He’s moved on to roles in high-profile Hollywood films, including a role in “A Walk Among the Tombstones” with Liam Neeson and Bill Condon’s Wikileaks movie, “The Fifth Estate.”

The fourth (Matthew-less) season of “Downton Abbey” will air in the U.S. in early 2014.

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