I envy people who can think, 'No, I'm not going to work today' when they have a huge pile of deadlines stacking up.
Julian Fellowes
Most of the soap operas always use the Christmas special to kill huge quantities of their characters. So they have trams coming off their rails, or cars slamming into each other or burning buildings. It's a general clean-out.
Sometimes you watch one of your favorite shows from 20 years ago and you think, 'I'm loving this, but golly, it's going at the speed of a snail.'
What the Americans want to see is life in their drama. Life of all sorts: hard lives, easy lives, or lives which, like most of ours, are a mixture of the two.
I mean the truth is, I've always been interested in the whole setup of the Old World.
I like to take a long time over breakfast, and I can't bear to talk. If a guest is a breakfast talker it's very important to invite another so they can talk to each other. Otherwise they spoil the newspaper reading and everything else.
One of the things that you're not really in control of - apart from everything - is your smell.
The English country house is certainly an icon of British culture.
I just don't believe in generalisations.
A lot of actors find it impossible not to ask for the audience's sympathy. They have a need to twinkle.
I think I have a very detailed sense of observation. I am interested in the details of people's lives and what information these details give.
Sometimes the weekend gets hijacked by work, but as my mother would say, this is the right problem.
I think the reason why people love 'Downton Abbey' is because all the characters are given the same weight. Some are nice, some are not, but it has nothing to do with class or oppressors versus the oppressed.
My own belief is that most people are trying to do their best. It doesn't mean they have no nasty side, or that they don't have a bad temper, or that they have never done anything they feel ashamed of. But fiction operates on people waking up trying to be horrible, and I don't think most people are trying to be horrible.
There isn't much point in the whole 'celebrity' nonsense unless one is prepared to go out on a limb and, one hopes, speak up for some under-represented section of the community.
For most directors, the scriptwriter is about as welcome on set as a member of the Taliban.
There is almost nothing in your house that does not tell something about you.
We don't really like rules. We think, in some way, they are an infringement of liberty.
The great houses of Britain have, for centuries, been the guardians of much of our history, not just of the families who built and lived in them, but of the people who worked there, of the local area, of all of us.
When you make your first film, there is a hell of a lot to think about, and you've got to have a gut understanding of your material.
My parents came from different backgrounds. My father's was grander than my mother's, so my mother had... to put up with the disapproval of my father's relations.
You see, in America, it's quite standard for an actor to sign, at the beginning of a series, for five or seven years. The maximum any British agent will allow you to have over an actor is three years.
You know, I'm not a revolutionary.
Success means your thoughts are worthy of everyone's consideration.
My childhood was a happy one, spent in a tall house in South Kensington and later in East Sussex, but my early and mid teens were less successful.
Ninety-eight per cent of actors who actually make a living do so in front of a camera.
Nothing is harder to dramatize than happiness.
I have derived enormous confidence from being a husband and father.
I think America has dealt with - I mean, this is simplistic, and of course I don't live in America - but the impression I get is that there is not a kind of obligation to dislike those who are better off or be frightened of those who are worse off.
What you have to understand about period drama is that it's 'history light.'
Most of us don't want to be outsiders.
To me, all success is a delightful surprise, since one can absolutely never predict it.
The business of life is learning that you can't lay down the terms.
To be honest, when you're running a series and you have an open end, you don't want to limit yourself too much with the choices you've got for a particular character.
I love 'Sex and the City;' I think I've seen every episode.
The '20s are a very interesting period to me.
You do get fond of your characters. Handing them on is like giving a child to a nanny.
Well, you've got to be known for something. The danger of extreme versatility is that you don't spring to mind for anything.
I think every period - except for the 14th century, or something - has some merits.
I always loved movies and the cinema; we always used to go to see films as a family.
If you are lucky, you have your moment. But it is never more than a moment. You have to enjoy it while it lasts.
I come from a class which used to be called the gentry - which is nowadays mistakenly used to include the nobility, but in fact is not. The gentry was essentially the untitled landowning class.
When you are desperate to get someone who isn't all that interested in you, you lay siege as hard as you can.
There are some men who are frightened by strong women and some men who are nurtured by them and feel nervous, with weak clinging vines. And I am very much of the latter category.
I think American television changed world television in its reinvention of the series.
I'm seen as a chronicler of the class system, which I don't think is unfair.
Of course I love winning things; I can't tell you how much I enjoy it.
I think Americans are wonderful film actors - the best in the world - but they are a very contemporary race and they look forward all the time.
I always like to arrive at the airport early to enjoy breakfast and lounge about so that when I get on the plane all my travel fever has disappeared.
Plenty of friendships are sustainable through dinners and lunches, but will not stand a week away. So be careful with whom you go on holiday.
