Though the story of “Downton Abbey” has continued for years thanks to the films — with the third and supposed last, “Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale,” premiering in September 2025 — many fans will always treasure those first few seasons above the rest. The ITV drama accomplished that rare feat of putting all of the pieces in place at the very start, with none of the slow buildup that most TV shows require. By the end of Season 3, however, some major cast changes and storylines shook things up.
The first of those dramatic departures came from Sybil, the youngest of the three Crawley sisters, played by Jessica Brown Findlay. After a class-consciousness storyline in Season 2 where she marries Tom Branson (Allen Leech), the family driver, and adopts a set of more progressive politics, Sybil returns to Downton to give birth in Season 3. Tragically, a spate of bad doctoring leaves her dead shortly after the delivery of her daughter.
It was a shocking twist at the time, becoming even more grim when just a handful of episodes later, Matthew Crawley (Dan Stevens) met his own sudden and unexpected end. Season 3 has a somewhat dour afterimage as a result, but Sybil’s exit was planned far in advance, as Findlay never intended to remain on the show long-term. Fears of being typecast early in her career pushed her to keep her tenure on “Downton” short, which is understandable given how monolithic the show quickly became.
Jessica Brown Findlay didn’t want to get trapped by Downton Abbey
Jessica Brown Findlay didn’t have many major screen credits when “Downton Abbey” premiered in 2010, so it’s understandable that she may have had fears of being locked into a certain kind of role. “I was much more afraid of becoming too comfortable in the Lady Sybil role than I was of leaving it,” Findlay told The Daily Mail in 2014. “It’s great to be in something that people enjoy but I didn’t want to play Sybil for years and then discover it was the only thing I could do. That was a much more terrifying prospect than unemployment.”
She made her intentions clear early on, giving series creator Julian Fellowes and the rest of the writers time to plan Sybil’s exit. “Jessica had said she was going to leave right from the beginning,” Fellowes told Vanity Fair in 2015. “She said, ‘I’m doing three years, then I’m leaving.’ So that was all worked out.” In the same interview, Fellowes explained that Dan Stevens’ exit from the series was more abrupt, which is part of why his death has a bit less build-up in Season 3 than Sybil’s.
With all that time to plan, one could argue that Fellowes might have come up with a less tragic end to the character. After all, she was already living far away from Downton with Tom in Season 3. Of course, while a less dramatic exit may have left fans happier, Fellowes had one rule when main actors wanted to leave the show, so RIP Sybil.
What has Jessica Brown Findlay done since Downton Abbey?
Though Jessica Brown Findlay may still be best known for her three years playing Sybil on “Downton,” she’s had quite a prolific career since leaving the show. While still a part of the series, she co-starred alongside Daniel Kaluuya in one of the first episodes of “Black Mirror” and had a role on the British sci-fi series “Misfits.”
After departing “Downton” in 2012, she scored a series of starring TV roles on shows like “The Flatshare,” “Harlots,” “Jamaica Inn,” and Peacock’s “Brave New World.” She’s also dipped her toes into the realm of voice acting, playing the vampire Lenore for two seasons of Netflix’s acclaimed “Castlevania” animated series.
On the big screen, Findlay has had major roles in films like the 2016 romantic drama “This Beautiful Fantastic” and the animated “Monster Family” films. Plus, she’s stayed true to her theatrical roots, returning to the British stage on several occasions over the years.
This story originally appeared on TVLine
