Goode revealed he was meant to appear during the racecourse day sequence seen in the film’s trailer.
After confirming that he will not be appearing in the final Downton Abbey film due to scheduling conflicts and a knee operation, Matthew Goode has now revealed further details of what his character’s role would have been in the film.
Speaking with Deadline, Goode revealed that his character Henry would only have been in “a half-a-page scene”, so would never have been a central figure in the plot.
Goode said his spoke with Lady Mary star Michelle Dockery “at length” about how the scene could possibly go, and that they were “going to try and ask for a slight rewrite”, but “eventually it was just that [the film was] moving ahead” without him.
Henry would have appeared during the “big racecourse day” sequence, which can be seen in the trailer for the film.
Despite having previously said that his character was “becoming a bit of a wet lettuce” and that “maybe it’s a good thing” he wasn’t able to appear, Goode told Deadline that it was “a shame” the scheduling couldn’t work out “because I love that cast”.
“To be on a set with Hugh [Bonneville] and Allen [Leech]. I’ve got great stories from those sets,” he said. “We actually gave Maggie Smith one of the greatest days of her life, she said. She came off [set], and she said, ‘I think that might’ve been my favourite day on a set ever.'”
The story in question saw Goode encouraging the cast to drink their way through 22 bottles of rosé on set, and while “no one was drunk”, they were “merry”.
Goode was also asked whether he would return for a spin-off centred around his character and Lady Mary, but he said it is “a very difficult thing to balance” because Mary is a “feminist icon” and “she doesn’t need a man”.
Goode previously clarified his comments calling Henry a “wet lettuce”, saying he didn’t mean it “in a horribly derogatory way”.
