In Actual Fact Mags

This blog is all Maggie. I'm 23 years young. Actor, Performance Artist and English grad. Sometimes in London, sometimes in Copenhagen. Fan and friend, and hard not to like! © Avatar by dontbesodroopy

[madamspeaker]

Maggie Smith has her makeup done, whilst on location for The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.

[madamspeaker]

[inactualfactmags]

"I was wearing pale blue velvet, trimmed with silver lace." "And I gave you this fan."

[madamspeaker]

A 54 second clip of Maggie Smith and Robert Stephens being interviewed at the National

[madamspeaker]

Muriel and Sonny return to India following their business trip to the US in the Huffington Post’s exclusive clip.

[madamspeaker]

Your mom’s show “Downton Abbey” is a hit here. Is she a “Black Sails” fan? Over here, it’s only been shown on Amazon Prime and iTunes. My mom just turned 80. The idea of her dealing with digital downloads is like her flying to the moon. We bought her the DVDs for Christmas. She’s going to watch it. I think she’ll be slightly baffled by it. It’s so visceral and violent – it might not be her cup of tea. But quite frankly, her show isn’t my cup of tea. - Toby Stephens (x)

[madamspeaker]

[madamspeaker]

The baker of Maggie’s birthday cake posted a picture of it online this afternoon.

Betty Scrumptious

Earlier this month I was thrilled to be asked, by one of her sons, to make Dame Maggie Smith’s 80th birthday cake. The brief was for a very simple, stylish cake incorporating a fabulous caricature drawn in 1979 by Hirschfield. I was thrilled to receive this feedback….”The cake was a HUGE success. You surpassed yourself and my Mum loved it. Also it tasted absolutely scrummy!!! (x)

[madamspeaker]

Maggie Smith as Mathilde Girard, in the English lesson scene - My Old Lady (2014).

[madamspeaker]

Michael Palin and Maggie Smith - The Missionary (1982)

[madamspeaker]

Maggie Smith as Miss Charlotte Bartlett, a chaperone - A Room with a View (1985)

[madamspeaker]

So, tomorrow we say goodbye. Is that what you really want?

[inactualfactmags]

If I Ever Leave This World Alive...

[inactualfactmags]

Goodbye Rod.

[madamspeaker]

Rod Taylor and Maggie Smith, on the set of Young Cassidy (1965)

Rest in Peace, Rod Taylor (11th January 1930 to 9th January 2015)

[madamspeaker]

Maggie Smith as the Girl -  The Girl on the Beach (1959)

[inactualfactmags]

I don't really buy the idea of Violet being submissive to be honest, especially to Robert of all people. She looked more mortified and shocked in that scene than anything else. This is the woman who once threatened to call for the nanny and send him to bed without supper, plus she had that line to Rosamund about men not having rights. I don't think she'd have been submissive in her marriage either. She implies she took lovers after Russia, so you'd have to figure that she was pretty ballsy.

Okay I can see how my post could be misunderstood. I didn't mean to say that Violet was submissive, she definitely wasn't. (And I certainly didn't mean she was opposite Robert - he is not at all relevant in my post. lol) What I meant was, that in this tiny moment she sort of shows a side which is not the ballsy one, as we so often see. Submissive might be a wrong word, but I just can't help imagining, that even though she is a woman very much with a mind of her own, she is also a woman who finds doing things "the proper way" important. She wouldn't have called out her husband, at least when they were first married, given the time she lived in. I have a feeling that there are really two fundamental sides to Violet - the proper one we see at the dinner table and who once said "...not until she is married, then her husband will tell her what her opinions are" and the very brave, passionate and even soft side. I think she just really knows when to turn one on and another off, and I especially think she would have done that in her marriage. Oh wow, I don't even know if this makes sense - it does to me anyway. lol. I just really like the scene :)

[inactualfactmags]

This fraction of a second is probably one of my favourite Violet moments of season 5. It is so short and slight, yet to me it says so much about Violet. There is something quite fragile and (dare I say) sexy about her reaction to this outburst. It's as if for one brief moment we get a glimpse of Violet as she might have behaved as the lady of the house back when Lord Grantham was still alive, and I can somehow imagine her reacting exactly like this to an angry outburst from her husband. Perhaps after finding out she'd spent so much time with the Russian Prince in St. Petersburg? In this brief moment she is not the imperious Dowager, but a submissive woman, which once again shows us, that there are so many more sides to Violet than we were first led to believe. And of course, it proves once again how much Maggie can do with so little.