Downton movie
Maggie Smith said she would play Lady Violet on the big screen if a "Downton Abbey" movie happens. Nick Briggs/Carnival Film & Television Limited for "Masterpiece"

“Downton Abbey” Season 6 will be the final season, but that doesn’t mean it has to be the last time fans see the Crawleys. Rumors of a “Downton” movie are spreading, and actress Maggie Smith confirmed that she’d be happy to return as the Dowager Countess.

“Hopefully I will be,” Smith said when asked about being in a movie, the Telegraph reports. “I think the wig is slightly more tired than I am. Yes, it would be fun.”

Some might find her enthusiasm surprising. Before the end of “Downton Abbey” was announced, the “Harry Potter” actress said that Season 6 would be her last season on the PBS period drama. However, her reluctance had more to do with the reality of Violet’s timeline than her experience on the show. She pointed out that character couldn’t logically be alive if the show kept fast-forwarding a few years every season.

“I mean, I certainly can't keep going,” Smith told the Sunday Times (via Radio Times). “To my knowledge, I must be 110 by now. We're into the late 1920s.”

While the news that Smith would be up for a “Downton Abbey” movie excites fans, it’s far from a sure thing. Executive producers Gareth Neame and Julian Fellowes discussed the possibility at the Television Critics Association press conference last month. Neame said that they are “definitely considering a film,” Vanity Fair reports. However, Fellowes was sure to point out that nothing is confirmed.

“There’s speculation about whether we’ll ever make a ‘Downton’ movie, we might, but there are no firm plans,” Fellowes said, according to Entertainment Weekly.

If Smith were to join a “Downton Abbey” film after the finale, Fellowes would likely be thrilled to write for her. He has said that he enjoys writing for the older women on the show. “I like older characters to have emotional lives, because I think it’s truthful,” Fellowes told the Hollywood Reporter in June. “In movieland, everyone stops being a sexual creature at about 32, or at least the women do. The men are allowed to keep going until they are 78 -- I’ve never worked that out. In my world, on the whole older people have emotions like everybody else, and I think the show demonstrates that.”

“Downton Abbey” Season 6, the final season, premieres Sunday, Jan. 3, 2016, on PBS.

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