Long before Season 4 of “Downton Abbey” went into production, creator Julian Fellowes spoke of introducing a recurring character of color. His invention, a famous Chicago-based jazz singer named Jack Ross, catches the eye of resident flapper Lady Rose (Lily James) with his effortless band leader charisma and honeyed voice.
But it’s anyone’s guess what the “Downton” crew thought when they received British actor Gary Carr’s audition tape — except that he knew how to own the screen.
Carr, 27, was in Guadeloupe when he got an urgent call from his agent asking him to get someone to film him reciting “Downton” dialogue asap.
Finding a suitable high-def camera required calling everyone Carr knew on the tiny Caribbean isle. But he also ended up having to compete for attention with some big-time scene-stealers.
“The sun was going down and there were, I’m not kidding, chickens running about and dogs barking,” says Carr on a recent evening as he drank mint tea at Noura, a Lebanese restaurant in London’s Mayfair district.
He must have piqued the “Downton” gang’s interest: Two weeks later, Carr, who was classically trained at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, was asked to make a second audition tape that showcased his crooning abilities.
This time, he sang an a cappella version of Billy Rose’s standard “Me and My Shadow,” which was popularized in the early sixties by Sammy Davis, Jr. and Frank Sinatra. Within days, he discovered the role was his.
Of course, clucking poultry and noisy mutts did not compare to the racket Carr’s character made in the English press before “Downton Abbey” premiered there last fall and Jack Ross was called everything from a “token” to much worse.
“The fact that that was such a talking point is representative of people’s perceptions of what ‘Downton Abbey’ is or what the UK is or what British history is,” says Carr, who prepped by poring over books about jazz greats Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong and the warm reception they received in post-war Germany, and France and the United Kingdom.
“I read a lot of comments [in newspapers] like ‘This would never happen. There weren’t black people in Europe in the 1920s.’ There’s a lot of ignorance.”
What else are naysayers getting wrong besides their facts? “Downton” executive producer Gareth Neame says that the reason why Lady Rose is captivated by someone like Jack Ross has mostly to do with how he treats her.
“He’s very gallant and she’s completely taken by this new experience,” says Neame. “I think she tells Lord Robert, ‘He’s more risqué because he’s a singer and leads his own band than because he is black.’ ”
Controversy or not, Carr is happy to have his profile raised by appearing on a hit show. “Jack is so intelligent and open and has a lot of heart,” says Carr, adding, “For me, it wasn’t a problem.
Being a person of color, it is not surprising to me that I would play a person of color. I love that I was not playing a victim or a servant or a slave.”
He particularly liked working with James. Take their love scenes. “There is a scene where we’re on a boat and we were told just to improvise some dialogue.
And so we ended up making up lines that had heavy sexual innuendo,” he says. “It was really funny for us, but even funnier was that it actually made it into the show. So when we had to go into the studio and redo our voice parts, we were really shocked. And no one in the room noticed, none of the sound engineers or producers.”
On this brisk London evening, Carr — who has big, friendly brown eyes, an easy laugh and is livelier than Jack Ross — arrives dressed in jeans and a thick cable-knit sweater.
He’s just come from rehearsal on “The Pass,” a play which just opened at The Royal Court Theatre. In it, he and Russell Tovey (HBO’s “Looking”) star as a pair of 17-year-old soccer players who, as Carr puts it, “share a room one night before a really big match and something happens which determines the rest of their career.”
Before he got the part of Jack Ross, Carr had never seen “Downton” and had to play catch up by quizzing his mother and sister, who are fans, and by binge-watching the first three seasons. But no one has to tell Carr, who made his debut at age 7 appearing in a West End revival of “The King and I,” that his role on the show could open doors. He yearns to be on American TV.
“I love the States and their attitudes about entertainment. I want to meet [television showrunner] Shonda Rhimes,” he says. “On shows like ‘Grey’s Anatomy,’ they have all these amazing characters.”
It’s not such a reach. Besides singing, dancing and acting, Carr has great comic timing. Over the course of an hour or so, two solemn looking policemen brandishing machine guns pass in front of the restaurant several times.
They’re a security detail for the Saudi Embassy next door. But Carr uses their presence to crack a joke. “They’re for me,” he deadpans. “ ‘Downton Abbey’ is very popular here.”