Lord Julian Fellowes peeled back the curtain a bit on the origins of Downton Abbey on Tuesday as he talked about his creative philosophy with a group of European marketing and design professionals.

The creator and executive producer of the smash hit period drama said that if it weren’t for the American heiress Cora (Elizabeth McGovern) at the heart of the Crawley family, Downton Abbey might have never existed.

“Cora was the first character I imagined, and then I got hooked on it and said yes to doing Downton Abbey,” Fellowes told the 2015 PromaxBDA Europe Conference in Berlin. He was interviewed on the conference stage by British journalist and broadcaster Penny Smith.

The gathering is a two-day summit of entertainment marketing, promotion, and design professionals from more than 30 countries.

Among his other Downton secrets:

-He wanted a backstory for the valet Bates (Brendan Coyle), but didn’t want to devote any screen time to it. His wife suggested giving him a limp. Viewers now just assume he was wounded in battle, but even Fellowes isn’t sure how Bates got the bum leg.

-The first inkling Fellowes had that he might have a hit on his hands was viewership shot up by 2.5 million for the second episode.

-He said it was “very strange” when Downton Abbey began to be used as an adjective.

-To illustrate how fanatic some Downton devotees have become, he recalled a trip to a Manhattan bookstore where he sensed he was being followed by a fellow customer. He finally asked if she required any assistance. With a quivering lip she responded: “Just let Edith be happy.” Fellowes said he finds it best to become a governess in those situations. His response was a gentle “let me see.”

Beyond Downton Abbey, Fellowes shared his approach to writing and creation that has helped him produce a string of successful projects.

Part of the secret to that success lies in his earlier career as an actor, he said.

“An actor has an instinct for what is salable and what is not. As a screenwriter, you’ve go to be cognizant of that as well as the timing,” Fellowes said.

He feels that a writer has to wait to be invited to a set because a director often has their own take on the material.

Successful creatives also know when to move on.

“One of the tricks of life is to know when something is not going to happen,” Fellowes said, adding later “I believe that if you keep banging your head against the brick wall, a brick will loosen. But it does also require a lot of luck!”

He teased out a few details about his next project, Gilded Age, for NBC. The story on the extremely wealthy families who began to assemble in New York City in the 1870s, like the Vanderbilts (Fellowes’ characters will be fictional, however). He hasn’t begun writing the series, but is actively thinking of the storylines.

Photo: Tom Howard Photography

More from PromaxBDA Europe 2015:

Playwright Sir Tom Stoppard Opens PromaxBDA Europe

Channel Brands: Lee Hunt Says ‘Move or Die’

PromaxBDA’s State of Our Art: Europe Edition

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