‘Downton Abbey: A New Era’ Interview: John Lunn on Continuing Momentum from Small Screen to Films
Composer John Lunn talks to FilmSpeak about the process of scoring Downton Abbey: A New Era, and reflects on the TV series as a whole.
FilmSpeak got the opportunity to speak with one of the greatest composers working today (in the humble opinion of this journalist), Downton Abbey’s John Lunn, in anticipation for the latest movie in the series, Downton Abbey: A New Era. Expertly creating rich emotional swings through his music, Downton Abbey fans have come to love Lunn’s incredible score that amplifies the series’ dramatic tensions throughout the series’ six seasons, and the 2019 feature film.
Lunn has returned yet again to score the latest film, which was directed by Simon Curtis, known for directing films such as The Art of Racing in the Rain, My Week with Marilyn, Woman in Gold, and Goodbye Christopher Robin. This is Curtis’ first time venturing into the world of the Crawleys, but Lunn explains his relationship in the interview as being great: “It really, really helped, because we already had a language working together. He's done a great job.”
In crafting the score for Downton Abbey: A New Era, Lunn expressed that he had a new terrain to work with, as the Crawleys go to the south of France. For him, it “brought a whole new kind of style of music. It’s much, much more Hollywood, quite brash, and quite fun. So that's given me another angle. And then the last 10 minutes of the movie is really quite moving.”
In scoring yet another film, Lunn expressed that the differences between moving from TV to film are quite minimal: “I've got a bigger orchestra [on a film]. A little bit more time to write it, although not much more. I think the biggest challenge was the family going to France, and the film crew, and still making it feel like you're in Downton Abbey, you know, not suddenly feel that you've moved into a completely different movie.”