Q & A With Lesley Nicol of Downton Abbey: Salty Raspberry Meringue, Adventures in Pretend Cooking + How Mrs. Patmore is Like Gordon Ramsay

SI: Really? What is a recent recipe that you have passed off as your own?

LN: There was a thing called Celebrity Bake Book, and it raised money for charity. I told them, "I'll happily be in the book, but I haven't baked anything since 1969."

SI: What did you bake in 1969 that traumatized you so deeply?

LN: I took a cookery course. On the examination I had to cook a cheese omelet with peas and an egg custard. With the egg custard, which was supposed to be a dessert, I forget to put the sugar in so that's more of a quiche, isn't it? And the peas I put on a plastic plate and it melted and the peas went down the cooker and I didn't have time to put cheese in the omelet. I still passed.

SI: What does that say for the state of cuisine back then that you ruined every dish and weren't instantly given a failing grade?

LN: I'll bet my written paper was quite good.

SI: Let's hear more about your adventures in pretend cooking.

LN: One of the Sunday newspapers asked me to make my favorite dish and they photographed me holding it in the kitchen. It was roasted salmon with roasted vegetables. That's not cooking, that's putting things in a pan. It looked quite nice but I'm not saying it was good.

SI: Mrs. Patmore is almost as famous for her cooking as she is for her memorable one-liners.

LN: Contramundi, that's one of the ones we love. Contramundi means it's you and me against the world. She says to Daisy, "It's you and me, contramundi," so that's "It's you and me against the world."

SI: What about "He knows this is just the sprat to catch the mackerel"? Translation please.

LN: Sprat is a small fish, so he's doing something small in order to get something bigger later.

SI: Mrs. Patmore has her dark side, too. Take the time she said to poor Daisy, "Listen to me and take those kidneys up to the servery before I knock you down and serve your brains as fritters." Brains for fritters? Sheesh.

LN: She's quite violent. [laughs]

SI: What parts of Mrs. Patmore do you love?

LN: I loved slinging the crepe at the dog when [one of the maids asked if she could try one.] It was like, "Whatever." [laughs] I like Mrs. Patmore's wittiness. I know the ladies upstairs get all the top lines, but I get some good ones too.

SI: It is well known that the upstairs scenes are shot at a real-life Yorkshire country estate seventy miles outside of London and that the downstairs scenes are filmed at set built at Ealing Studios. Do you ever get to go to Highclere castle?

LN: Not often. I've worked there no more than eight times. This is Alastair again. In the first season, a duke comes to visit and all of the servants line up to welcome him and I said, "Can I come?" and he said, "No. You have a huge dinner to prepare. There's no way you can be able to come upstairs and leave that kitchen. It's just not believable. But I might have you peeking behind a bush." And we DID peek from behind a bush, but they cut it out. At the servant's ball last Christmas, I was dancing with Matthew, which was marvelous. There is a big outdoor scene with everybody in season three.

SI: Is the vibe different at Ealing Studios than the one at Highclere castle?

LN: It's completely different. We're [on a set] and not in somebody's home with treasures all around. That inhibits how people feel. You have to be on your best behavior. Whereas, we are very badly behaved.

SI: What do we mean by "badly"? We've heard that Siobhan Finneran, who plays O'Brian, and Rob James-Collier, who is Thomas the footman, are the naughtiest.

LN: They're not the only ones. I think we take it in turns in terms of being badly behaved. We're often told to be quiet as a group of people. Because we get over excited. Sophie and I, we're usually working together, and she makes me laugh. I love that Daisy is changing and a bit more difficult. That's just Mrs. Patmore getting her own. It's like having a teenage daughter around with a terrible attitude. [laughs]But the fact is that we are working really fast. We get through a lot in a day so some programs you see those outtakes where actors have got the giggles? If it happens [on "Downton"] and it does, it doesn't happen very often. The fact is that we've got crazy schedule.

SI: There are rumors on the internet that Mrs. Patmore is getting a love interest. Which character would you like her to have a torrid affair with?

LN: Anthony Hopkins.

SI: He's not even on the series.

LN: Can't he be? [laughs] That's a real, genuine plea from me. Can't he come along and be the local butcher?

SI: Perhaps something was kindled during her dance with Matthew Crawley?

LN: There's a bit of an age difference.

SI: Which makes it an even more compelling storyline.

LN: I did request a love interest to Julian Fellowes quite some time ago. He said, "Never say never." [Julian Fellowes] has developed all of us nicely. He wouldn't let me be just a shouting, red-faced, bossy cook. We're more than that. None of us are one thing. Which is fantastic.

Some other great interviews:
Q & A With Bruce Aidells: The Great Meat Cookbook, CSAs + a Pig Named Dinner
Q & A With Lisa McManus, America's Test Kitchen's Gadget Guru: OXO Tongs (Yes), the Garlic Rocker (No) + Why 9-Year-Old Girls Should Have Strawberry Hullers
Q & A With Homeland's Abu Nazir: Navid Negahban on Israeli and Persian Cuisine, Looking for Hummus in L.A., Shimon Peres' Facebook Page + Getting Detained by the Real Guys