Robert James-Collier’s has opened up on another Downton Abbey (Picture: Dave Benett/WireImage)

Downton Abbey star Robert James-Collier, 44, discusses his creaking hips, his indie past and not having any ambition.

What is your new Netflix series, Fate: The Winx Saga, about?

It’s Harry Potter meets Gossip Girl and if Netflix don’t agree with that description, then it’s too late, I’ve said it.

It’s a fantasy drama based on a cartoon, set in the world of Alfea, where there are fairies with powers and specialists who don’t have powers.

Those two worlds meet at a school. It’s a magical series but it’s quite dark and it resonates with our world too – people fall in and out of love, they’ve got phones and social media, there are dark forces and mysterious threats.

Your character, Saul Silva, is a ‘specialist headmaster’, which sounds pretty cool.

The Downton star is in a new Netflix series (Picture: Jeff Spicer/Getty Images)

He’s been described – not by me – as ‘dashing’. He’s the headmaster of the specialists, these master swordsmen who are Alfea’s version of the marines.

They don’t have magic but they have to protect Alfea and the school from the threat of these reawakened beasts, the Burned Ones.