The Stunning Transformation Of Downton Abbey Star Elizabeth McGovern

These days, Elizabeth McGovern is known for her steady role as Cora Crawley across the six seasons, five Christmas specials, and three films of the "Downton Abbey" franchise. However, the famous actor's career has been much more turbulent than just that. Back in the 1980s, she embarked on a Hollywood career that launched her overnight from the status of high school drama nerd to Oscar winner. This jarring transition would leave McGovern floundering in fame. The complicated dynamics of the movie industry did nothing to ease her evolution, and she particularly struggled with the tension between Hollywood's undeniable glamour and cruel objectification of women. 

McGovern's experience of showbiz's dark side was so negative that she eventually moved to the United Kingdom to reinvent herself. But the process of rediscovering her personal truth was often complicated, and McGovern's path toward happiness was bumpy. Despite this, she always did her best to keep her chin up, designing creative outlets of her own to find her own version of artistic success far away from La La Land.

Elizabeth McGovern was born in Evanston, Illinois, to parents who were very far removed from the entertainment industry. Her mother was a teacher and her father was a university law professor. And although the family did eventually move to Los Angeles to secure a UCLA professorship for McGovern's father, their household was not exactly pro-Hollywood. "[W]e were very much not a typical LA family," McGovern later told tell Tatler. "My parents weren't interested in movies." What were they like? "They were eccentric, academic, gentle, kind," she recalled. 

Regardless of where their interests actually fell, this adorable Midwestern academic couple would soon find their daughter wrapped up in the wild world of Hollywood. Around the time that McGovern graduated from high school, she was contacted by an agent. Next thing she knew, she was cast in the movie "Ordinary People." Even though McGovern missed out on the special connections of Hollywood's biggest nepo babies, she was grateful to have normal parents. After all, they didn't pressure her to become a movie star. As McGovern explained in a 2025 interview with The Guardian, "I was never desperate, so I could always just walk away. A lot of young women didn't feel they could. I think I was very lucky."

It didn't take long for Elizabeth McGovern's family to realize that she had major acting talent. Shortly after acting in the film "Ordinary People," McGovern secured a part in the 1981 movie "Ragtime." This time, her performance won her the 1982 Academy Award for best supporting actress. McGovern's almost instant rise to fame led her to believe that working in Hollywood would be easy. As she later told The Guardian, "I think I did feel like, 'Gosh, this isn't as hard as people say.' ... I only realized later how difficult it is to sustain a career."

The fact that so many people in the entertainment industry seemed to fawn over her did not help. "You're put into this privileged position where everything you say or do has this added relevance. But part of being 20 is to go around saying and doing ridiculous things you're supposed to," McGovern reflected in a 2003 interview with the Independent. She also noted that her overnight success was not easy to manage. After all, she hadn't had time to mentally prepare for life in the spotlight and everything that went along with it. "I didn't have the years of struggling to put it into perspective. I remember it as a burden, almost impossible to bear. It was a lonely time for me," she confessed.

Elizabeth McGovern's quick transition from anonymity to fame was not helped by the fact that her first roles included something of a sexual component. In "Ragtime," she appeared nude. She also acted in a scene portraying graphic sexual violence. Even in the scenes in which her character wasn't actively being objectified, McGovern felt obligated to represent some kind of feminine ideal. "I knew my job early on was to fulfill a man's fantasy of the woman they wanted. It never occurred to me to even question it," she later told The Guardian.

Because of these tragic old Hollywood power dynamics, McGovern watched as others fantasized about her body. The experience left her feeling deeply uncomfortable. And McGovern remembered that time in her life as among the most painful, even decades later. "I look back on that whole period of being an object, being someone else's fantasy, as not very nice. I'm relieved not to be that anymore," she told the Independent. How did she remember her portrayal of sexual violence in "Ragtime"? Not well, apparently. "I look back on that period of my life, and the rape [in that film] was sort of a metaphor for what it felt like," she commented.

One of the challenges of instant fame was the destruction of Elizabeth McGovern's once-happy social life. In the early 1980s, the young actor was a recent high school graduate who wanted to keep in touch with her old classmates. As she became increasingly embroiled in the film industry, however, McGovern found it harder to stay connected with the people who were once her support system. The reason? Her priorities underwent a drastic change.

"I was in high school and we were all thinking about graduating and what we were going to do and where we were going to go," McGovern explained in an interview with the Daily Mail. When she suddenly became a successful movie star, her problems no longer centered on her career choices. Instead, they related more to the extreme objectification that went along with fame. "[I]t really slightly derailed me. I suddenly felt very separated from all the friendships I'd formed in high school," McGovern shared. Although she was not able to maintain all of her friendships, the actor managed to remain in contact with her then-boyfriend years later. That said, at the time of her actual crisis, McGovern truly felt alone.

Even though Elizabeth McGovern struggled socially for a while, she did eventually meet her match in Simon Curtis. The charming British film director swept her off her feet, and in 1992, the pair walked down the aisle. Not long after they wed, McGovern and Curtis realized that they were expecting. The exciting news propelled them to ditch Hollywood and head to England, where they could raise their little one far from the chaos of Tinseltown. As she explained in an interview with the Independent (via W4), "Hollywood never suited me, I didn't ever feel comfortable with it, it took me a couple of years but I found where I was always meant to be ... Chiswick!"

In some ways, McGovern's big move across the pond made sense. She was, after all, looking for a fresh start far away from a culture that had harmed her. At the same time, it represented another major life transition. "[I]t was a shock to me because I had a pregnancy quite quickly ... and giving up my country and my career," McGovern admitted in the same interview. Despite these challenges, McGovern tried to remain positive. During that same pregnancy, she noted what a good sense of humor Curtis had. "I realized, 'That's why I'm with this guy.' Humor is a way of processing problems, which makes them easier to bear," she told Woman & Home. The couple welcomed two daughters, Matilda and Grace.

Just because Elizabeth McGovern moved to England, however, does not mean that she stopped acting. In 1995, she accepted a role in "Wings of Courage," a short film about a group of French pilots trying to fly over the Andes Mountain range. The movie made cinematic history as the first dramatic film to be shot in IMAX 3D. At the time, McGovern seemed excited about her role in it, telling interviewer Roger Ailes, "[T]here may come a day when we look at two-dimensional movies the way we look at movies without sound today, as some crude old way of entertaining ourselves."

In the same interview, McGovern went on to say that she didn't view this movie format as a gimmick. Instead, she considered it a new type of creative outlet, one that she was thrilled to be a part of. "The attempt has been not to make a movie that goes for the shtick but rather goes for the emotional story. And have the audience actually become involved with the characters. So, that's been a challenge, and whether or not we've succeeded is [up to you]," she said. Decades later, 3D movies have not become the baseline, but McGovern made history for her part of the experiment. At the time, her work was perhaps not fully appreciated. Interviewers zeroed in on McGovern's nude scenes in "Ragtime" instead of the significance of "Wings of Courage."

Eventually, Elizabeth McGovern realized that she needed to get a healthy distance away from Hollywood. Although she never gave up acting, she took a break from big Hollywood blockbusters and focused on a U.K.-based career. McGovern even began using music as a creative outlet. In 2007, she started a band called Sadie and the Hotheads and performed in it as its lead singer. Describing her motivations for founding the group on its YouTube page, the actor-turned-singer explained, "My life took a turn, and I found myself in a new country. And I found myself kind of starting from scratch in my career."

Because of some of her previous roles, many of McGovern's fans expect her to play classical music. However, in the same YouTube video, she revealed that the band likes to blend multiple genres. "If you come to an evening of Sadie and the Hotheads music, you'll hear a bit of a country feeling. You'll hear a sort of rock 'n' roll feeling. Some of [our songs] are sort of bluesy. Some of them have a jazzy feeling," McGovern shared.

This style of music proved quite popular, and in 2012, Sadie and the Hotheads released an album titled "How Not to Lose Things." The following year, the group enjoyed a U.K. tour. McGovern, though, didn't want to take credit for the band's success, telling Music News, "I am in awe of the musicians who I had the opportunity to work with on this project."

In 2010, the course of Elizabeth McGovern's career changed forever. She played the role of Cora Crawley in Season 1 of "Downton Abbey" — a historical drama that attracted millions of viewers from around the world. Despite the generations that separated McGovern from Cora, the actor related to her character on a deep level. Like McGovern, Cora was an American who had gone to live in England after marrying a high-profile Brit. As she later told NPR, "I've spent 20 years rehearsing the part. I do find myself bumping up against a culture that is in many subtle ways different to my own, and is a very interesting juxtaposition to me personally — and in this case, professionally."

For McGovern, one of the hardest parts of integrating into British society was understanding all of the cultural norms. In her "Downton Abbey" role, the actor found that Cora struggled with many of the same concepts that she did. Speaking about this parallel with Deadline, McGovern noted, "Cora literally does not understand the social codes, which is a bit how I feel, actually. I mean, even now to this day with Simon and his family, the way they do things, and I'll think, 'Why?'" But if the actor didn't always understand British culture, she did understand Cora — so well, in fact, that she was nominated for an Emmy in 2011.

"Downton Abbey" was not the only highlight of Elizabeth McGovern's career. The actor also got to work on some exciting projects with her husband, Simon Curtis. Like many "Downton Abbey" stars' real-life partners, Curtis is also in the entertainment business — albeit as a director. And in the 2015 film "Woman in Gold," McGovern actually got to act in one of his films. As a wife and a friend, McGovern loved seeing Curtis in action. "[It] was fun for me, because as far as I'm concerned, the guy never does anything!" she joked in a chat with Tonic. "He's always sitting around the house watching TV as far as I can tell, because most of the times I don't see him in a professional context," She went on to add, "He kept everybody so happy and created such a wonderful atmosphere and wove all these parts so dexterously. I was really, really impressed."

It was not the last time that McGovern and Curtis collaborated on a film. The latter actually directed the second "Downton Abbey" movie — "Downton Abbey: A New Era." At the time, McGovern raved about her husband's work to Hello!, stating, "[H]e rose to the occasion and was really brilliant, and he's done a fantastic film." Curtis later directed the franchise's third movie, "Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale." McGovern told Tatler that he was perfect for the job: "Simon had the status to make everyone feel reassured."

If you have ever wondered why we rarely see women over 50 in Hollywood films, Elizabeth McGovern has an answer for you. "There is a ticking clock [that says] this is supposed to be over when you're 40. And really, once you get old, it's very rare to redefine that and stay relevant," she told Tonic. In her view, actors who reach that age — especially female actors — are iced out of the entertainment industry. McGovern went on to say that certain journalists exhibited ageism toward her in interviews that were supposed to be about her work. "I can't tell you how many times I'm interviewed, and the first question is about plastic surgery," she lamented.

Rather than let ageism get her down, however, McGovern has felt compelled to rally against it. She hopes to hold herself as an example of a woman who embraces her age. As she revealed to Deadline, "I feel for my daughters, it's important that they see a woman who is not ashamed of being old. It's like, bring it on. Let's run with this. So that inspires me." While she doesn't judge stars who were unrecognizable after plastic surgery, McGovern feels that it's her duty to keep her visage au naturel. "I do feel like if I have a job to do, it's to make people feel like they can look forward to becoming old as women," she added.

Casting directors may not have always been open-minded about Elizabeth McGovern's age, but she has been determined not to let that stop her career. She realized that if nobody was going to offer her another interesting role, she would have to do it herself. Determined, McGovern wrote a play about Ava Gardner based on the biography "Ava Gardner: The Secret Conversations." McGovern's work, which is simply titled "Ava: The Secret Conversations," reflects her own emotional reaction to the life of one of Hollywood's biggest icons. "I felt an absolute connection to her story. I felt justified in bringing my own understanding of certain things that Ava might have experienced because of things that I've experienced," she told Slant.

Naturally, McGovern decided to play the lead role. In her view, it was much better than what she was getting offered — or, as she once told The Telegraph, "So many times when older women are in movies they fall into three categories, the blowsy, bitter alcoholic, the Alzheimer's victim or the sweet granny, hands folded and knitting — that's it." By portraying Gardner, McGovern had the chance to tell a meaningful story, one of objectification in the movie business. In the aforementioned Slant interview, McGovern noted, "I mean, she was completely sexualized. Nobody ever talked about anything to do with her brain or her talent." Her play explored a different side of the old Hollywood icon, focusing on everything from her wit to her relationship with Frank Sinatra.

Elizabeth McGovern's play, "Ava: The Secret Conversations," was wildly successful, playing in London, New York, and Toronto. Motivated by this career boost, McGovern has decided that her future is in the writing world. "It's my next obsession. I really want to write stuff. I'm really excited about that," she told The Guardian. Her next project will likely be a screenplay, and although she has yet to sort out the details of the project, McGovern hopes to play yet another fascinating role. Speaking to Deadline, she teased that the main character is a "fantastic older woman."

Interestingly, the plot of her next work will also probably take place in the past — if McGovern is able to secure the rights to the story. In the same conversation with Deadline, she hinted, "They're in the 1960s coming together for a family weekend in the country, and in different ways, they're all negotiating their sexual romantic lives." Of course, even if this project does fall through, McGovern has no intention of giving up her dreams. As she put it in the aforementioned interview with The Guardian, "It's not that I blame anyone for accepting the status quo, but it doesn't mean I have to. No way."