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 had girlfriends, but settling down was the last thing on my mind.

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

Certain stories that you want to see resolve in certain ways are, and some aren't, but that's life.

After World War II, the major estates really did collapse.

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

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