这是米歇尔·达科里年代以来12年tarted playing Lady Mary Crawley, the oldest of the three aristocratic sisters on the British megahit series “Downton Abbey.” And she says that even now — after six seasons on television, a successful 2019 movie and the release this month of a crowd-pleasing second film,“Downton Abbey: A New Era”(opening in U.S. theaters Friday, May 20, following COVID-related delays) — she gets the same thrill each time she receives a new “Downton” script.

On a recent phone call with The Chronicle from London, Dockery said that she’s just as eager to discover what Academy Award-winning creatorJulian Fellowes(who also wrote the recent HBO series“The Gilded Age”) has in store for her and her castmates. After each hiatus from the “Downton” world, she looks forward to reuniting with colleagues who have become close friends over the years, like Allen Leech (who plays chauffeur-turned-gentry Tom Branson) and Laura Carmichael (Lady Edith).

“Coming back together for this sort of ‘regular’ job is quite unusual in the acting world,” said Dockery, who also stars in the new Netflix limited series“Anatomy of a Scandal.”

“Normally, you do something, you meet people, even if you get close to some, generally you say goodbye and you move on to the next one. You’re constantly moving on. With ‘Downton’ it’s lovely because you get to see your mates again, and catch up and gossip. They really are like family now. We’ve spent so much of our lives together and with these characters.”

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“The reason Julian has continued to write these characters is that people seem to really still love and enjoy them. We say it’s the job of a hundred goodbyes. We said goodbye at the end of season six, and then it wasn’t goodbye because we did the film. We thought that was it, but we’ve just finished the second film. There’s still an appetite out there for Downton, so who knows?” she said, hinting at her openness to do a third installment.

In period soap opera fashion, the extended Crawley clan living at their 5,000-acre estate, as well as their dozens of “downstairs” servants, have each lived through more than their fair share of highs and lows since 1912, when the first season was set. They’ve found love and weathered heartbreak and losses, world war, feuds, and whiplash changes of fortune.

“Downton Abbey: A New Era,” directed by franchise newcomer Simon Curtis (“My Week With Marilyn”), who is married to Elizabeth McGovern (who plays Cora Grantham), opens with the wedding of Tom Branson (Allen Leech) and Lucy Smith (Tuppence Middleton). News then arrives that the Dowager Countess Violet Grantham (Maggie Smith), who’s in failing health, has inherited a villa in the South of France under mysterious circumstances she’s not ready to divulge. She’s bequeathing the lavish property to Branson and his daughter, Sybbie, in her will.

Meanwhile, the family has received a lucrative offer from Hollywood to shoot a silent film on the estate. Mary stays home to manage the film crew’s controlled chaos while the rest of the family travels to France.

“I’m always so incredibly curious just to see what Julian will come up with next,” Dockery said. “And when I read this one for the first time, I thought, ‘This is the funniest ‘Downton’ has been yet.’ There’s great humor in seeing the family members step outside their comfort zones, either sending half the cast to France or staying to see their house invaded by actors.”

Fellowes’ famous wit has always been channeled most vividly into the mordant one-liners delivered by Maggie Smith. While she has plenty in the new film, he has also suffused the entire film with levity and satirical asides, as was apparent from the audible laughter throughout the theater at a recent advance screening at San Francisco’s Vogue Theatre (and, spoilers aside, there were many shedding tears by the film’s end as well).

Dockery has great comedic moments of her own, involving a plotline about Mary’s plummy voice (which is quite different from the actress’ speaking voice) being used in the film-within-the-film.

She agreed it’s fitting she gets to play for laughs since an underlying theme in “A New Era,” as its title suggests, is legacy. In the new film, Mary adapts even further into her rightful position as the family’s next matriarch.

“That’s been sort of an underlying message in the series from the beginning, I think,” Dockery said. “Her son will inherit and she is the next generation.”

“I love the way Mary has evolved and matured over the years. When I look back at our first season, she was just a teenager and was quite hardened in the beginning. After going through periods where she’s content and others where she’s discontent, she’s softened. So we find her now in a place where she’s much more settled. She’s embracing her responsibilities. She’s enjoying being the boss and running things.”

Leech, who plays Branson, said in a separate video call from England that it was Dockery who first alerted him back in 2011 that the series wasn’t just popular after its first season; it was on its way to becoming an off-the-charts global phenomenon.

“I was back in Ireland doing a play after season one, and I’d seen ‘Downton’ take off in the U.K., but I hadn’t really realized the success it had enjoyed in America,” he recalled, “where the fans are the most excited and most outspoken.”

“I remember getting a text from Michelle, who’s since become like a sister to me, going, ‘This is nuts!’ I still had no idea what she was talking about until I came back to London and we all watched the final episode of the first season together. I got on the Tube and someone pointed at me and did the driving sign (with their hands). They couldn’t believe Branson was sitting on their train,” he said with a laugh.

A number of years later, after a flight to Indonesia, he was in a taxi leaving the Jakarta airport. “The taxi driver points to me and goes, ‘Tom Branson! You do what I do!’ Which is really, really crazy.”

Reflecting on her own favorite pinch-herself moment to come from their “Downton” fame, Dockery recalled a White House Correspondents Dinner during President Obama’s second term.

“Allen and I were there and had our photographs taken with Barack and Michelle Obama. She was crazy about the show. That’s a moment and a photograph I’ll never forget.”

“Downton Abbey: A New Era”(PG) opens in theaters starting Friday, May 20.