NEW YORK • A Downton Abbey movie may be coming and, if it does, the drama's creator Julian Fellowes would be back for it.

The hit period drama ended its United States run with the conclusion of its final season on Sunday.

In an interview with The New York Times published on Sunday, Fellowes said it was "strange" not working on the series which he had done for six seasons.

"There may be a movie - they still haven't decided - in which case we'll jump back in with them. But I can't pretend it's not at all strange, because for six or seven years of my life, the show dominated almost every waking moment. I would start writing it in September and I would write until July. To have that suddenly removed from my routine is very strange."

He kept open the idea of continuing the Downton story in some form. "I like the idea of seeing it as something that is continuing, as opposed to finishing with Manderley burning down and that story's over," he said, referring to the house in British author Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca.

"I want to feel that in some part of the atmosphere, Mrs Patmore is taking in her paying guests and Mary is wrestling with farming methods," referring to Downton's characters. "I like that idea."

His new drama, Doctor Thorne, premiered in Britain on Sunday and he has said it is not the new Downton, but "a love story for spring", set in 1850s Victorian England and based on an Anthony Trollope novel.

In a review, The Telegraph says the show, starring Tom Hollander, Rebecca Front and Ian McShane, "feels akin to the best TV adaptations of Trollope". "And those ball gowns alone are more than capacious enough to fill the Downton-shaped hole in our Sunday night viewing."