Hugh Bonneville and I, at this moment in time, are waxing rhapsodic over the music of Downton Abbey. I’ve confided to the British actor that I am obsessed with the sumptuous, lush score to the point where I listen to little else for days on end.

“John Lunn,” Bonneville smiles. “He’s a lovely Scottish composer and a dear man. That music is just — when you just hear those opening bars, it just gets you into a certain mood.”

That certain mood will return in the fall as Julian Fellowes’s extraordinary creation, in which Bonneville plays Lord Grantham, the head of the titular estate, will take its final bow with a third and final film, Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale.

“It really is about tying up loose ends and not shuttering the house, but shuttering the story,” Bonneville says of the movie, slotted for a September release. “I haven’t seen it yet, but from what we filmed, there is a sense of closure…. And those who have seen it have said they really laughed and they really cried. So what more can you want?”

What more? How about the opportunity to watch Bonneville mesermize live on stage in a captivating and emotionally resonant Uncle Vanya at The Shakespeare Theatre.

“Bonneville brings an extraordinary naturalness to this performance…and his comic timing for this particular kind of man is nothing short of brilliant,” wrote this magazine’s Kate Wingfield in her 5-star assessment of the production, directed by Simon Godwin and co-starring Ito Aghayere, Melanie Field, and John Benjamin Hickey. Anton Checkhov’s probing drama — or is it a darkly comedic satire? — runs through the end of the weekend. (So hurry!)

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“It’s been a very happy time,” says Bonneville of starring in Vanya, which had an initial run at California’s Berkeley Rep before traveling to Washington, D.C.

“I think iconic parts attract iconic actors,” Godwin tells me in a subsequent conversation. He recalls being transfixed as a teenager by Bonneville’s Laertes in a Royal Shakespeare Company mounting of Hamlet starring Kenneth Branagh in the title role.

“He’s mercurial, like all great actors,” Godwin continues. “He can chart all of [Vanya’s] different moods and tones and energies and feelings and emotions…. And there’s two other things I would say about Hugh. One is that he’s non-judgmental — he’s not interested in coming to an opinion of a character, but is interested in embodying the complexity of that character.

“And the other thing is that Hugh is ego-free. It’s not about Hugh looking good or somehow occupying a position of status or power. He’s just puts his whole personality in the service of the character that he’s playing. He looks up to the character, and the performance becomes an act of celebration and almost kind of deference to, in this case, the genius of Chekhov. And that’s such a beautiful quality.”

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“It is all there in the text,” says Bonneville. “Simon and I charted the course of a man having a breakdown…. It is such a genius take on the human condition, which makes it a pleasure to play.”

Since Downton Abbey‘s phenomenal worldwide success, Bonneville has become something of a cherished household name, notably for the delightfully funny Paddington film series, in which he plays head of household Henry Brown and de facto poppa to a talking, raincoat-wearing, mischief-prone Peruvian bear.

“Funnily enough,” he says, “[the Paddington films are] really hard to make because they’re so fiddly and technical. Of course, the finished result looks fluid and effortless. But they were tough old shoots. But I’m very proud to be part of something that delights millions of kids all over the world.”

Bonneville’s resume overflows with a tremendous range of roles, from early appearances in Tomorrow Never Dies and Notting Hill, to the more recent I Came By, a Hitchcockian thriller in which he plays a chilling serial killer, to the stunning British mini-series Douglas is Cancelled, co-starring Alex Kingston (E.R.) and Karen Gillan (Guardians of the Galaxy).

He credits Downton Abbey with elevating the trajectory of his career. “That show changed our lives,” he says. “No one expected it to run beyond the first season…. And then we ended up doing six seasons and three movies.”

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Of Downton‘s appeal, he says, “You’re in the company of people you want to be with, which is certainly what I felt when I read the first episode when before I was cast. I just read these very vivid characters who all had their own voice, and I wanted to know what happened next.

“For me, personally, I wouldn’t have met a bear called Paddington if it hadn’t been for Downton Abbey. I wouldn’t have done a movie with George Clooney [The Monuments Men] if it hadn’t been for Downton Abbey. It’s opened up so many possibilities. And it’s genuinely a lovely feeling — a once in a career feeling — to be involved in something that barely a day goes past where people come up and say, ‘Thank you for that show. It meant a lot.'”

Bonneville is not opposed to returning to his Shakespearean stage roots. “It’s twenty-plus years since I have. I was re-reading The Winter’s Tale, which is such a beautiful play, and I’d love to play Leontes. Or Much Ado — I’d love to do Benedick if I can still move my knees enough,” laughs the 61-year old.

He concludes our casual, comfortable Zoom by noting the importance of revisiting the classic works, such as those by Shakespeare, Chekhov, and even Arthur Miller (“I think a production of The Crucible right now would be very timely”).

“We ignore classics at our peril,” he says. “I was looking up a piece of Troilus and Cressida today about degree — degree meaning the state of balance and order in society. Let me just find the line, it’s really amazing. ‘Take but degree away, untune that string, and hark what discord follows.’ That was written 400 years ago, and it’s pointing out the danger of dismantling the pillars of democracy. You can take from that what you will. But every play speaks to its generation in a way that often you don’t even anticipate. We need to reflect on those plays of the past to inform the present.”

Uncle Vanya runs through April 20 at The Shakespeare Theatre’s Harman Hall, 610 F St. NW, in Washington, D.C. Call 202-547-1122 or visit www.shakespearetheatre.org.

Watch Hugh Bonneville in I Came By on Netflix (www.netflix.com) and in Douglas is Cancelled on Britbox (www.britbox.com).

Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale will be released in theaters on September 12. Visit www.focusfeatures.com.