After it was announced from various news reports that Maggie Smith was planning to leave Downton Abbey, it turns out that this may not be the case.

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Earlier this week, the actress who plays the snappy Dowager on the series, previously told Sunday Times that her character can't really continue at this point.

"I mean, (my character) certainly can't keep going," she said. "To my knowledge, I must be 110 by now. We're into the late 1920s."

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This seemed to imply that Smith wasn't going to stick around after the sixth season, which led to several sites saying that there would be no more Dowager after that.

But on Wednesday, CNN posted the details from a Downton publicist who said that the actress would stay "for as long as the show runs."

While that might seem like good news, there is still a possibility that Smith won't continue after the sixth year because the show could be officially done after that.

"They say this is the last one, and I can't see how it could go on," Smith said.

In a recent report from Yahoo! News, executive producer Gareth Neame advised that people shouldn't be focused so hard on when the series will end.

"It's really the only question you get asked and it's a bit sad," he said. "How about the fact that the ratings on the first of this current season were the highest ratings of any show in America? Downton Abbey is the most popular show in America out of everything and yet all anyone wants to ask is when it is going to end."

Downton Abbey Season 6 is expected to premiere in the United States in early 2016 on PBS.

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Downton abbey, Television, PBS, Maggie Smith