Reaching your castle
Is the castle in your mind a pipe-dream? That place that you reach for, that you envision, that your soul pines for? The castle is your home; when your body feel strong and alive, when your thoughts aren’t racing, when your actions are in alignment with your heart, when nothing feels stiff and rigid, but flexible like a bamboo.
When you are living your castle, you feel grounded, you withstand the storms, and yet your spires reach for the skies.
You can’t map your career to castle trajectory ahead of time, but when you look back you can join the dots and see how it all fits together- even the challenges along the way.
Living your castle is a sense of homecoming.
My BRAVE NEW GIRL podcast guest this week is Liz Trubridge , producer of Downton Abbey the TV series and the two movies.
She talks to me about the upcoming movie, Downton Abbey - A New Era, and the journey that led to Highclere Castle and beyond.
Your homecoming castle
Embody the place of your dreams, in the work that you do and the life that you live.
This week’s guest is Liz Trubridge, producer of Downton Abbey, the most successful British Drama export of all time & Winner of a Primetime Emmy, a Bafta, a Golden Globe & the Producers Guild of America Award. Downton Abbey the movie hit the No 1 spot in both UK & US on it’s opening weekend; more recently followed by the movie release of 'Downtown Abbey: A New Era'
During the pandemic the film industry was hugely disrupted - and yet Liz and her team managed to make this latest movie under all the covid restrictions without losing a single day.
Liz grew up passionate about stories, and make believe plays, and envisioned a future where she might somehow live making those scripts come to life.
After leaving University she went into TV- as a young women in a predominantly male world, but managed to find strong female mentors and guides.
Nevertheless as she worked her way through the ranks there were inevitably challenges to face and slowly she found ways to help herself, mentally, spiritually & emotionally, to overcome whatever faced her with equilibrium and understanding.
After she collaborated with Julian Fellows on her first feature From Time to Time, she was given the opportunity to produce what was to become 6 ward-winning series of Downton Abbey and now two movies.
Her drive through it all has been to create very human and relatable stories, and it is no wonder then that Downton Abbey has had such phenomenal success with huge popularity across the world.
Downton Abbey - A New Era arrives on the silver screen as a timely and much needed up-lifting experience after two years of a global pandemic.
And now Liz is producing a film about the Lockerbie plane bombing; a heart breaking tale of Jim Swire's loss of his daughter in the disaster, and his consequent search for the truth, but ultimately with love at the heart of the film.
In the meantime thank you so much Liz for bringing us a slice of another era that reminds us of our humanity, and need for community, love and connection, no matter what period of time or social strata we are born into, or which side our bread is buttered.
Thanks also for showing us that trusting in our life’s purpose and taking action in that direction will lead us to where we are meant to be.
You can find out more about Liz’s work through her agent www.saraputt.co.uk/ and follow movie updates on Instagram @DowntonAbbey_offical
What’s your story?
It’s never a straight forward route to the place you want to be. And when you look back at the journey you have taken, that is your story.
Listen to the real life stories of Brave New Girls like you.