Role Call: What is the Countess Hiding?

This week, we get our first look at Downton Abbey‘s new season including spoilers regarding the dowager Countess, find a professor taking on a role in the CIA, see why New York is so popular, and follow Peter Pettigrew into a haunted house. All that and more in Casting News!

ITV1 is preparing for the UK premiere of the latest season of Downton Abbey on September 21 with a new twenty second promo, which you can view below. The promo features the dowager Countess, Dame Maggie Smith, giving advice to Isobel Crawley.

In addition, The Telegraph posted a lengthy article about the new season, providing fans of the show a look behind the scenes of the production and gave hints as to what we can expect when the series comes back. The new season will not be focused solely on Lady Mary’s love life after Matthew or what Branson has decided regarding his fate at Downton. Spoiler alert! Maggie Smith’s character will have a new storyline, revealing a ‘past’! A few photos of Smith on set were also revealed, along with the fact that she claims never to have seen the series. Take a look at the photos below:

Reviews for Jim Broadbent‘s Big Game are still surfacing from the Toronto International Film Festival, including a photo of Jim from the film and a small clip, both of which you can view below. Jim plays a CIA analyst alongside a wonderful cast including Victor Garber, Samuel L. Jackson, and Felicity Huffman in this political action film that finds Air Force One taken down by a disgruntled former White House retiree.

We previously posted about the production of Skylight in the UK and the broadcast of the play via cinemas around the world with dates in the UK in July while international cinemas will see it beginning October 23. Bill Nighy‘s Skylight will now move to Broadway, according to The Hollywood Reporter, beginning this April. Nighy is slated to continue his lead role opposite co-star Carey Mulligan when it premieres at John Golden Theatre for previews. Tickets are now available here for both the previews as well as the limited run through June.

Another performance that will also see a broadcast to cinemas is Stephen Fry‘s Twelfth Night. Globe is bringing a set of plays by Shakespeare to the big screen in New York beginning this week starting September 16. To view the schedule and find a showing near you, visit the tickets website here.

John Cleese will appear this November as part of literary series Unbound to promote his new book. The four event series from New York’s BAM (Brooklyn Academy of Music) will also include Girls creator and writer Lena Dunham. To purchase tickets for John’s book launch event with BAM for So, Anyway…, visit the website here.

A new clip from Pride has been released via IMDb, starring Bill Nighy, Imelda Staunton, and Jessie Cave. Take a look at the clip showing all three stars below and don’t forget to check out our exclusive interview with Jessie about her role in the film!

Finally, Timothy Spall has been cast in a new three part series called The Enfield Haunting. The drama is based on a true story out of the UK about supernatural events that took place in 1977 at a home in Enfield and is set to air in 2015. According to Digital Spy, the series is based on the book by Guy Lyon Playfair based on a recording of “alleged poltergeist activity”, which was published in 1980. Spall will play researcher Maurice Grosse, who was invited to the home after the family was terrorized by an unseen entity. He also commented on his new role, telling Digital Spy:

I am very pleased to be taking part in The Enfield Haunting. Not only is it based on a supernatural happening, it is also a brilliant script that is full of emotional texture and develops beautifully into a human story.

That’s it for this week’s edition of Casting News – which project are you anxious to see? Let us know by commenting below, on Facebook, or on Twitter!