Toby Stephens has now revealed pesonal details about his final conversations with his mother, Dame Maggie Smith, before she died. The beloved Downton Abbey and Harry Potter star died peacefully in hospital in September last year at the age of 89.

Her sons Toby and Chris Larkin announced her passing in a joint statement at the time, describing her as "an extraordinary mother and grandmother" whose loss left them devastated. Now Toby has participated in a moving interview with the Times, telling them that the Oscar-winning actress had been in a state of gradual decline during the last two years of her life. He also admitted that Maggie stepped back from her line of work completely in 2023.

Toby explained: "She was in hospital. She was supposed to be coming out. But the last two years of her life had been a decline: she would get worse, then she would get better, then she would get worse."

Although her health was going progressively downhill, Maggie encouraged her son to travel to New Zealand to film a horror film he had been recently cast in.

Toby recalled her words, saying: "She said, 'Go do it. God, you don’t want to hang round here, I’m fine.'" Sadly, just after he arrived on the island doctors informed him that her condition was unlikely to improve, and it was uncertain how long she had left.

Toby remembers speaking with his mother one last time before she became unresponsive. He shared: "I’d spent hours and days sitting with her at home and in hospital over the course of two years, and there was nothing I had left unsaid."

Maggie died on September 27 - just one day before filming on the set of Marama wrapped. Toby's wife Anna-Louise Plowman and their three children were with Maggie at the hospital the day before she died.

Toby’s brother Chris Larkin was by their mum's side for her final moments. The actor has admitted he was "so sad" not to be there too.

He added: "I found that very difficult, but she was no longer aware. And it allowed me some space to actually get my head round what had happened."

Toby also expressed his gratitude for the outpouring of love following his mother’s death, particularly from those who remembered her earlier work on stage and screen.

He told the Times: "What really got me was: it’s very rare that you have actors that everyone likes. And she had spent her life not thinking of herself like that, which is very winning. If she had thought of herself like that it would have been ghastly. But she wasn’t like that at all."