‘Downton Abbey’: Maggie Smith, 80, to Exit Series After Season 6, but Will Continue Working

Downton Abbey, the British television period drama series created by Julian Fellowes and produced by Carnival Films for UK's ITV network and by Masterpiece for PBS in the United States has just aired its final episode for season 5 last night. It has been commissioned for a sixth season. Dame Maggie Smith, 80, who has played the role of Violet Crawley, the Dowager Countess of Grantham, since the series debuted on September 26, 2010, said she was done with the character after next season.

In an interview with the Sunday Times [via New York Times], Smith said: "They say this is the last one, and I can't see how it could go on. I mean, I certainly can't keep going. To my knowledge, I must be 110 by now. We're into the late 1920s." However, she will not be quitting acting. She will continue to work as long as she is able to. Said she: "When you're not working it's scary, and when you are working it's scary, because you don't know if you've got the energy to get through the day. But the bleakness of not doing it, and missing out on the friendships that you make, is too much to bear."

Smith will be seen on the US big screen on March 6 when The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, the sequel to the surprise 2012 box office hit British comedy drama movie The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, is released. She will reprise her role as Muriel Donnelly. She joins fellow original members who likewise will be seen reprising the roles they played in the first film, namely, Judi Dench as Evelyn Greenslade, Bill Nighy as Douglas Ainslie, Penelope Wilton as Jean Ainslie, Celia Imrie as Madge Hardcastle, Ronald Pickup as Norman Cousins, Diana Hardcastle as Carol, Tena Desae as Sunaina, Lillete Dubey as Mrs. Kapoor, and of course, Dev Patel as Sonny Kapoor.

Smith has also just finished shooting The Lady in the Van, a film adaptation by Alan Bennett from his 1999 play of the same name that tells the true story about an elderly woman named Mary Shepherd who lived in a battered car on his driveway for 15 years. It will be the third time for Smith to play Mary Shepherd. She has played the character twice before, in the 1999 theatrical production and in a 2009 Radio 4 adaptation.