Having sorted the BBC, Hugh Bonneville tries to pull off the World Cup in Twenty Twenty Six

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Ian Fletcher, actor Hugh Bonneville’s second most notable TV character, has had quite the high-flying career.

The British management executive was “head of deliverance” for the 2012 London Olympic Games on BBC’s Twenty Twelve, then joined the BBC itself as “head of values” on that satire’s inside-baseball sequel, W1A.

Now, in Twenty Twenty Six, Fletcher is “head of integrity” at FIFA, working with a group of Americans, a Canadian and a Mexican in Miami to pull off this summer’s World Cup.

Bonneville, who recently retired from his best-known role of Robert Crawley, Earl of Grantham, in Downton Abbey, spoke to The Globe and Mail’s J. Kelly Nestruck about his character’s new position ahead of the show’s Canadian premiere on BBC First and Britbox.

Director of integrity at the 2026 FIFA World Cup – right off the bat, that’s a great joke.

Well, there were some learning experiences after Qatar and the organization has appointed a new director of integrity. Unfortunately, the former guy left the building quite precipitously, literally, so I’ve been parachuted in to take over his job.

What led Fletcher to leave his job at the BBC?

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Eventually, with the various changes at the BBC, they decided that values should be outsourced. So there was no longer a role for him. But, also, I think it could be said that he really sorted out the BBC and left it in great, great fettle.

Yes, no problems there at all these days. FIFA’s cracking down on freedom of expression around the stadium here in Toronto, policing what’s put on sandwich boards around pubs and that sort of thing. Was there any trepidation about taking on the World Cup?

Our show is taking place in a fictional parallel universe. So if words like that organization you just mentioned come up, they’re bleeped. It’s up to the viewers’ imagination to try and join the dots.

It’s hard to satirize an organization that gave a peace prize to Trump.

I couldn’t possibly comment, but I know this is a strange world. Satire or comedy is getting harder and harder to create when the real world is writing its own jokes.

How far in advance was this filmed?

We shot it last summer, in July. So it’s a long way out. The show’s creator, John Morton, is the slowest writer in the universe, and he’d been writing for about two or three years before that. So whether anything comes up that does chime with reality is pure coincidence.

But that’s been the case before – when we did the Olympic show in 2012 for instance. Our opening episode was about the countdown clock going in the wrong direction and, in real life, on the day that we launched the show, the countdown clock broke down.

Twenty Twenty Six has a Canadian character, but he’s played by an American. Which might have got me upset, except that you also have an American played by a Canadian.

Paulo Costanzo is from Toronto and he’s playing this hard-nosed New York lawyer. And Stephen Kunken from New York is playing the delightful, passionate supporter of Vancouver.

Did those two actors bring the North American perspective? There are a lot of British actors playing Americans on the show.

Chelsey Crisp, who plays Sarah, is American as well. And Jimena Larraguivel is from Mexico – she plays Gabriela, our passionate defender of Guadalajara. It was great having that perspective. Fortunately, they’d seen the former iterations. They were just brilliant to slip into the rhythm of how it’s done.

FIFA congress in Vancouver exposes rifts weeks before World Cup

I assume you have some sort of insider understanding of how the BBC works, having acted in BBC shows. Did you do any research to figure out what’s going on behind the scenes at FIFA?

I did talk to someone who used to work at FIFA, who said: “You don’t know the half of it and no show will be able to really get under the skin of what really goes on.”

But, as I say, this is a parallel world. We’re satirizing management of any sort. The sense of sitting around a table discussing issues that need to be sorted by Friday, and whoever’s running the meeting having a pretty clear idea that no one’s actually going to achieve what they’re meant to be doing, even if they were listening.

You’re good at saying these ridiculous, meaningless things and making it seem as if they have meaning behind them.

That’s the skill of John’s writing. Because they’re delivered with intention and earnestness, it takes you a beat to realize that, actually, they mean nothing at all most of the time, and that the meetings go around in circles.

Fletcher’s former BBC intern, Will, Hugh Skinner’s character, shows up in Miami.

I was delighted because we have a lovely dynamic. In this iteration, Ian Fletcher becomes even more his uncle, and needs to take him under his wing. I call him the Paddington Bear of the office world. He’s going to break the photocopier, but it’s not out of any malice.

Since you mention Paddington, are you continuing with those movies?

I see that they’ve just announced a new Paddington. As for whether I’m going to be in it or not, I don’t know. I keep saying I’m too old, but they’re such a delightful franchise globally and the stories are timeless and full of art. It’s always going to, obviously, be down to the script.

But you are done with Downton Abbey, right?

Yeah, that’s definitely it, certainly for our cast.

As for Fletcher, will he go back to W1A after the World Cup?

I don’t know where Ian Fletcher might go next. It’s teed up in the show that there’s the 2028 Olympics coming along. But he’s now got global reach, and there are plenty of problems around the world he could be called in to address.

This interview has been edited and condensed.

Twenty Twenty Six airs new episodes Fridays at 9 p.m. ET/PT on BBC First; the full series is now available to stream on Britbox.