For the last episode [of Downton Abbey], you'll need some handkerchiefs. I needed handkerchiefs reading it. It wasn't because it necessarily moved me while reading it, but it was the experience of reading it when I realized it was the last time I was ever going to be reading one of those scripts. That was quite terminal.

I always try to look for the best in most places.

At home I have a Tibetan terrier. I'm still not sure if he's a genius or very thick. It's a fine line.

To go to the White House is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. In fact, the building is not that big.

In Britain, the press want to kill a show by revealing what's coming up and spoiling the pleasure.

It's never happened to me before, in my career, and never will again. It's a one-off experience. It's a rare treat to have a cast together for six years. Crews come and go, and a few of them have been there throughout, but not many. It's rare, in my experience, after 26 years, to have had a proper company in a show that enjoys each other's company, and who is such a fine bunch of people and actors. To have struck a chord with people, and to have had that combination, is extremely rare.

I certainly couldn't run a big country house, nor could I organize the greatest show on earth.