Playing Under the Piano: From Downton to Darkest Peru

A moving, laugh-out-loud memoir from one of today’s best-loved British actors, whose credits include Downton Abbey, Notting Hill, and Paddington.

From getting his big break as Third Shepherd in the school nativity play, to mistaking a Hollywood star for a real estate agent, Hugh Bonneville creates a brilliantly vivid picture of a career on stage and screen. What is it like working with Judi Dench and Julia Roberts, or playing Robert De Niro’s right leg, or not being Gary Oldman, twice? A wickedly funny storyteller, Bonneville also writes with poignancy about his father’s dementia and of his mother, whose life in the secret service emerged only after her death.