#loved when his character was homophobic to thomas and then blackmailed him. love how thomas keeps stupidly being gay with pretty rich boys

[sportygothic]

s1e3

#i wikipedia'd theo james and he's of greek descent playing a turk. so handsome though i get it now. he looked good in a bathrobe ffs #loved when his character was homophobic to thomas and then blackmailed him. love how thomas keeps stupidly being gay with pretty rich boys #and humiliating himself. flopping at his politicking for the valet position. gossipy smoke breaks with o'brien. hes so funny #loved the mary and carson scene “youve always been so kind to me why is that”; “even a butler has favourites” <3 <3 mary <3 #also the matthew/edith date where they walked around the church and he asked about mary… edith is a femcel #downton abbey liveblog

[festeringfae]

i'm like 2 years late to the party on this one, but WHERE is the source this post: "I can’t fucking believe that instead of either one of them being homophobic, Rob James-Collier and Charlie Cox apparently spent the pilot of Downton Abbey in an unspoken blood pact that said pilot was dog shite but they were going to force as much gay content past the untalented Tory showrunner as possible." this is the wildest thing i've read...i need to know more

omgggggg i feel u tho anon, for some reason that post didn’t get ANY notes for like 2 years but has been steadily cycling after the 2 year mark, and i’m always here to help a fellow gay prisoner of Downton

BACKGROUND INFO:  showrunner Julian Fellowes is LIT-ER-AL-LY a Conservative Peer in the House of Lords, whereas RJC actually pushed back against having to change his middle name to part of his last name for acting purposes because "Rob James-Collier" sounded too posh. RJC throughout the series has corrected interviewers when calling Thomas “evil” by saying he’s “misunderstood.” At the start of series 2 RJC asked Fellowes if Thomas was still gay (i cannot verify the tone of this question), & there is a fucking I C O N I C video where at an American event, after being asked really rude questions about Thomas, someone asks the cast what they would get their character for Christmas, and RJC pipes up without smiling, “a boyfriend.” This is met with laughter and then when the audience sees a cast member clap they remember “oh right gay people aren’t a punchline I’m liberal” and start clapping. RJC continues, unsmiling. , “about time.” This promotion was before the series 3 premiere, which means not only is RJC calling out the lack of romance for Thomas iN PUBLIC, he essentially confirmed that Thomas wasn’t getting a boyfriend WHILE PROMOTING THE SERIES WHERE JIMMY FIRST APPEARS, effectively subverting the queerbaiting before it can be done. The gifs really convey how Done he is better because he’s got Customer Service face on, but I’ll link the video as well. The gifs: https://evelynnapier.tumblr.com/post/38358172592 The video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=hSElswli95E  Okay with all this in mind, PILOT:

--While I’ve repressed can’t find the exact quote Julian Fellowes tells RDJ and Charlie Cox something along the lines of, don’t worry, your characters are gay but I know making you kiss would be “too pushy.” --Rob James-Collier objects that actually, he feels the characters WOULD kiss here. No word on CC’s take on this to my knowledge but like, if he didn’t want to do it his would be the deciding vote and if he didn’t wanna do it he’d have the authority of the showrunner on his side, so. If you watch the scene, not only do they have a regular mouth smooch, but RJC also throws in as many hand-kisses as he can while Charlie is saying his lines. Charlie leans into a caress at one point. If you look on my blog the same month/day as the post that lead you to asking me this, i had like a full meltdown featuring screenshots about how much gay physicality they squeezed into a like 45 second window written by a dude who thought gay kissing was a bridge too far. psuedo source on both of the above: https://festeringfae.tumblr.com/post/178539316648/leelajoy716-twopennyprince-im-listening-to  Now, THE SMOKING GUN WHICH INSPIRED ME TO MAKE THIS POST: 

This is Charlie Cox about the Downton pilot. Two things really jump out at me here, one involving a lot of ~analysis~ and the other one being blatant and hilarious: 1) While this is obviously just a dude who had a one off part he had several years ago paraphrasing, it is interesting to note that not only does Thomas/Rob NOT say I love you in the scene, but Charlie Cox/The Duke’s entire role consists of him coming to Downton in order to steal back the letters he sent T/R in order to avoid blackmail before dumping him. The fact that CC remembers this scene with “love” between both of the men, whereas the actual script is just about one scheming asshole assuming another scheming asshole would blackmail him after they broke up over not being able to see each other much suggests that Charlie Cox thought of these character’s relationship in terms of “people who like or liked each other at one point but just can’t be together due to societal circumstances” way more than the script did. And the fact that he can remember Rob’s name even though as far as I know they only met & knew each other shooting like 2 scenes on a pilot & never saw each other again suggests that he, like, cared about talking to Rob more than studying the script (which has their characters names on it) in order to do this role. Also suggests that Charlie Cox didn’t ever, like, continue watching the show after the pilot lol. 2) JULIAN FELLOWES. THOUGHT ASKING TWO STRAIGHT ACTORS TO KISS. WAS “TOO FAR.” BUT WAS OKAY WITH ASKING CHARLIE COX TO SAY “ONE SWALLOW DOESN’T MAKE A SUMMER.” GIVEN THE LEVEL OF CRASS IN THE REST OF THE SERIES, JULIAN FELLOWES’ BACKGROUND, AND THIS KNOWLEDGE, WE CAN VERY SAFELY ASSUME THIS MEANS JULIAN FELLOWES WROTE THE DUKE OF CROWBOROUGH QUOTING ARISTOTLE’S “ONE SWALLOW DOESN’T MAKE A SUMMER” AND LITERALLY DID NOT THINK IT HAD ANY OTHER CONNOTATION THAN ABOUT THE TYPE OF BIRD CALLED A SWALLOW. Clearly, because Charlie Cox’s friends quote it to him all the time, and he remembered the exact phrase even though he doesn’t remember the rest of the dialogue or even Rob’s character’s name, CHARLIE COX KNEW THIS WAS GOING TO SOUND LIKE “JUST BECAUSE I SUCKED YOUR DICK DOESN’T MEAN WE’RE SOULMATES.” The line is still in the pilot which MEANS it is highly likely that Charlie Cox did not POINT THIS OUT. If you know anything about RJC's sense of humor (or honestly? even just the above ‘is so not posh that he protests changing his name to something more posh sounding’), you can safely assume that HE absolutely knew what it sounded like, and also did not snitch. The line is still in the pilot, along with the aforementioned kissing. MY CONCLUSION: Charlie Cox and Rob James-Collier absolutely spent the pilot of Downton Abbey in an unspoken agreement that it was dogshit written by a homophobic conservative but that they were going to cram as much gay stuff into it as possible. 

#THE PEOPLE WANT A WILD RIDE I GIVE THEM A WILD RIDE #thomas barrow #Anonymous