Elizabeth McGovern
Elizabeth McGovern
Elizabeth Lee McGovernis an American film, television, and theater actor, and musician. She received an Academy Award nomination for her role as Evelyn Nesbit in the 1981 film Ragtime. She is also known for her performance as Cora Crawley, Countess of Grantham in the British drama series Downton Abbey, for which she has been nominated for an Emmy Award and Golden Globe Award. Her other films include Ordinary People, Once Upon A Time In America, The Handmaid's Taleand The Wings...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionTV Actress
Date of Birth18 July 1961
CityEvanston, IL
CountryUnited States of America
I love having the opportunity to explore a part for a great length of time, really get deeper and deeper into it, because you only have a chance to do that once or twice in a career.
So the English approach to show business and their work is more - and this is a big generalization, I hasten to say - but it's more, they work on it as a craft job.
As far as I can see women who have facelifts don't look younger, just weirder. You see them on screen with these tight, little porcelain faces - then the hand goes up to the face and it looks like it belongs to an alien. I find it really freaky.
Honestly, I am always shocked when I see myself in the mirror because I feel exactly the same as I did when I was 18 getting off the plane to go to Juilliard in New York.
Whenever I work on anything, there's always the fantasy that what one is doing is the next 'Citizen Kane'-slash-'Sopranos.'
I still feel I'm doing the same work I've always done.
I just find it fascinating, like everybody, to be in a different life. It's an escape.
I've raised daughters who are English, and I'm American, so they're culturally different to me, which is an unusual situation.
I can't just sit around thinking how lucky I am.
I had reconciled myself to being happily out to pasture, a bit.
I have a terrible sense of direction.
My father was an academic, an eccentric. He was a lecturer.
It's peaceful for people to know how their lives are going to be, pretty much.
In today's world, we all live with the burden of feeling that anything is possible if we're only clever enough, smart enough, work hard enough.