Hugh Bonneville: My brother’s sudden death gave me a wake-up call

Paddington and Downton Abbey star Hugh Bonneville is recalling the mid-life wake-up call he experienced following his brother’s sudden death.

“My brother [Nigel] died in his sleep aged 62, about nine years ago. I woke up the next day and thought, why have I not planted that copper beech I’ve been meaning to plant for 20 years?

“I think that gave me a wake-up call in terms of doing the things that you have been shelving for years,” says the 62-year-old.

“I also remember my great mentor, Celia Imrie, when I was starting out as an actor and we were in the same play together, and she looked after me.

“She’s my sort of [my] unofficial godmother. Her mum always used to say to her, ‘Do it now’. I’ve taken that as a motto. I would qualify this by saying, ‘Think it through, then do it now. Don’t park it here forever because, like my brother, you could disappear without warning.’”

The actor, who played Mr Brown in the Paddington franchise and Lord Grantham in ITV’s Downton Abbey, is currently starring in the West End production of Shadowlands, portraying children’s author CS Lewis, creator of The Chronicles Of Narnia. He says that he views life differently in his 60s.

“I always used to say, at 19 I knew everything. By the time you reach 40 you haven’t got a clue and I think that is slightly true. I now have a benign acceptance of fate. I personally can’t change the world but I can do my bit to do the right thing.

“All you can do in your own sphere is speak up for those who are less fortunate than oneself and do the right thing, and frankly love thy neighbour as thyself.”

He describes himself as ‘a bit of a workaholic’, juggling theatre, TV projects and writing children’s books.

His first, Rory Sparkes And The Elephant In The Room, now out in paperback, is a tale inspired partly by his own childhood and his 2022 memoir Playing Under The Piano, featuring the eponymous schoolboy and some amusing shenanigans when the circus comes to town.

“I thought my life growing up in South East London was remarkably dull, but the more I chatted about it with the publisher, I realised that actually there was lots to draw on, including elephants from the circus.” (While growing up in Blackheath, the circus came to town, and the circus children attended his school, with one arriving on a baby elephant).

“It was really the fun adventure of going back and chatting to my 10-year-old self.”

Now on the literary festival circuit, he is mindful of the ‘celebrity author’ stamp, so insists that he is interviewed by other children’s authors at events to boost publicity for them too, and last year chatted to Lucy Strange, Sam Sedgman and Rachel Chivers Khoo, among others.

“I don’t do it (writing) as a full time job. Many people do, and I understand that I sometimes get more focus than than I merit, simply because I’ve been on the telly and stuff.

“So I’m really conscious of wanting to shine a spotlight on other children’s authors as well.”

He’s currently putting the finishing touches to Rory Sparkes And The Spy Who Loved Tea, the second in the three-book series, when Rory is caught up in a spy ring involving a tea cartel in his neighbourhood – and the spy may or may not be his mother.

“That’s again loosely based on the fact that I had no idea that my mum worked for MI6, even though she was in the filing department, but nevertheless it was quite a discovery in later life.”

Bonneville lost his mother, his father and his brother in a six-year period. So starring in the stage production of Shadowlands, a heart-wrenching story about love and loss, has been cathartic, he says. It’s the story of CS Lewis who found late-flowering love with American poet Joy Davidman, before she lost her battle to cancer.

“Doing a play about grief, which involves a treatment of grief, has been very cathartic,” he says. “And I think one grieves every day. I miss them every day, but it’s part of the tapestry of life. We all go through grief in different ways.

“A memory one day can make you laugh out loud and the next day the same memory can make you burst into tears. Grief is a strange thing. A friend of mine described it as waves on a shore. Sometimes it’s a little ripple that trickles over your feet and sometimes it knocks you like a tsunami.

“I think that lessens over time, but the trickle is always there, the little wave effect is there.”

There have been other changes for Bonneville in recent years. He split from his wife, Lucinda Williams – known as Lulu – in 2023 after 25 years of marriage.

As for the future, the actor says he remains an optimist, with a positive outlook, despite the current global situation.

“We have the potential right now to be in a worldwide conflagration that has no positive outcome. But I’d like to believe that humanity will prevail. There is enough good in the world, I think, to overcome the forces of darkness and reckless inhumanity.”

Last year, during a live interview with ITV on the red carpet premiere of Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale, he called the situation in Gaza “indefensible” and urged international action.

Today, he says he cares about humanity, “I’m not a political animal, by any stretch. I believe I have a humanitarian pulse in my veins. I don’t take sides. I just cannot bear, like any other human, the destruction of children, the maiming of children, the desolation of populations.”

It’s clear that Bonneville wants to be a force for good, like Paddington’s adoptive parent Mr Brown. Will he return to Paddington?

“I’m sure StudioCanal will be busy wanting to extend the franchise, but it’ll be a while off and Mr Brown will be in a bath chair.

“Never say never, I mean it’s a beloved franchise but honestly these things take so many years to pull together and no actor is indispensable.”

He also bats away any notions he might appear in any Downton Abbey spin-off.

“Whether there’s an appetite to [go] forwards or backwards in time and explore what happened at the castle, it was such a beloved show that I wouldn’t be surprised if the powers that be would like to investigate it further.

“But it won’t be with Robert [played by Bonneville] and Cora [Elizabeth McGovern], apart from being a tombstone or a twinkle in someone’s eye.”

He has plenty of other projects on the go, though. Next month he stars in Twenty Twenty Six, a sequel of the BBC satirical comedy series W1A and follow-up to Twenty Twelve, reprising his role as Ian Fletcher, now the ‘director of integrity’ at the 2026 World Cup.

“It’s being hosted by Mexico, Canada and the US – so what could possibly go wrong?” he says, dryly.

Bonneville turns down a lot, but likes to keep working, he says.

“Like all actors, you wonder if the next job is going to be your last, really. But I feel very fortunate to be working across the board in television and to an extent in film.”

Rory Sparkes And The Elephant In The Room by Hugh Bonneville is published in paperback by Bloomsbury Children’s Books, priced £8.99. Available now.