Spread the Word! Downton Abbey's Dame Maggie Smith is Looking for Stage Work But Doesn’t ‘Get Any Offers’

Dame Maggie Smith may be a theater icon (she even has a brand new trophy to prove it!) but the Downton Abbey favorite is hard up for a juicy stage role. At the London Evening Standard Awards on November 17, the Oscar, Emmy and Tony winner stepped up to the stage to accept the Theatre Icon Award, but instead of thanking her agent, she asked the starry audience for a job.

“I would love to do more theater work but really, I don’t get any offers,” Smith said. “I’m with my agent [in London] and I’m told I’m busy for the next year, but after that I would love to do more work on the stage—especially after winning this award.”

Smith asked the audience, which included Helen Mirren, Rory Kinnear, Adrian Lester, Kevin Spacey and Andrew Lloyd Webber, just to name a few, for assistance. “If you could help me put the word out, maybe that would help! Maybe you could put an advert in for me.”

The Dame is always welcome on Broadway, where her previous appearances include Lettice and Lovage, Night and Day, Private Lives and New Faces of 1956. In addition to her delightfully dry turn as the Dowager Countess of Grantham on Downton Abbey, her many film and TV credits include the Harry Potter movies, Gosford Park, A Room with a View, Hook and The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.

If you can convince your agent, dear Dame, there's a role in the musical adaptation of Bullets Over Broadway that might interest you...