![](https://static.independent.co.uk/2022/02/16/09/pjimage%20%2817%29.jpg?width=1024&auto=webp)
Downton Abbey stars Michelle Dockery and Michael Fox are set to release an EP after signing a record deal.
On Wednesday (16 February), it was announced that Dockery and Fox had signed with Decca Records.
The actors, who play Lady Mary Crawley and Andrew Parker in the ITV series, will release music under the duo name Michael and Michelle.
A four-track EP of original songs titled The Watching Silence, recorded in London last year, will be released on 6 May.
The pair’s music has been described as “more Nashville Americana than UK folk in melody and structure”, with “impressionistic songs… free of pastiche and shot through with their own London realism”.
Speaking about her pivot to music, Dockery said: “It’s a whole different set of skills and vulnerability. Acting tends to start with what’s already written on the page. Music can begin anywhere. It’s different and very freeing.”
![](https://static.independent.co.uk/2022/02/16/09/Photo%20credit_%20Cal%20McIntyre%20%282%29.jpg)
Fox added: “I will always love acting but there is something about us, some part of our characters that we haven’t fully realised – and that’s happening now.”
The actors aren’t giving up on the screen just yet, however, and will star in the forthcoming Downton Abbey film, A New Era.
A sequel to the 2019 film based on the series, it was last month pushed back another month to a release on 29 April in the UK.