Jessica Brown Findlay Quotes

I absolutely adore Alessandra Rich, I think her dresses are stunning and she really knows how to cut and dress the female shape. Her stuff is really beautiful, stylish and a little bit quirky. I love it all!

I don't mind giving everyone a shock - including myself.

I'm hungry for a cold and mean character - I'd love it if someone thought I could play gritty. I want to play a baddie, someone really scary.

I love when people become obsessed with Downton.

What I really learned from Tim Burton is that it's important to have your own person in a role because you can't play a character unless there are elements of human behaviour that you yourself understand. I was really struck by how Tim Burton would like to sit and chat about you... or question things which then you had never thought about. It is a good thing to always step back a bit with things like that. But I try my damned hardest to learn something from everything I do.

Performance became part of my art in a way - expressing things and emotion.

I like to accessorise shirts with a little ribbon tied round my collar or a country style ascot. I've also sewed little hearts on some of my sleeves which I've done for years because I always wear my heart on my sleeve so if you see a little embroidered heart on my clothes, that's why!

Sometimes when a scene is written or directed to be shouted or played incredibly angrily, I always think it's way more terrifying when someone is fuming and talks in a very calm way. I always want people to shout at me if they're angry - it freaks me out that whole thing of, 'I'm not angry I'm just disappointed.'

You never think you're as old as you're ever going to get.

I just really think every job I do, I get this gypsy attitude to money.

The thing I adore about acting is that it's not me: you get to experience all these emotions, but essentially it's not you.

At 17, we all think we know what we're doing.

I filmed 'Albatross' before I got 'Downton.' It's a coming-of-age movie about this girl who leaps into this family's life, like a whirlwind. She's ballsy and brash and wonderful, it was such an amazing character to play.

When you get a bit older and you realise that no one knows what they're doing, no one's perfect and it's fine.

On the surface, it's really easy to dismiss certain characters, but sometimes you find that the most interesting parts are disappointingly shallow. It's your job as an actress to pull that person apart, and work out why they act the way that they do.

I am a hopeless romantic.

Girls in scripts are often pretty but brainless, or geeky and no one likes them, so it's great to find richer roles. Chalk and cheese aspects of people are very interesting to play.

Before I go on stage, I knock three times. Three is my lucky number; I once went into an audition and was number 333 and got the best part ever.

I trained as a ballet dancer - well, I started when I was two and a half, and was serious about it from when I was eight until I was 18.

My style icons would be people like Brigitte Bardot and old Hollywood actresses who always look so stunning, cool and chic. I like classic and timeless looks.

I do so many things. Like when I was younger, if I drove past a house that I didn't want to live in, I'd hold my breath. Driving around somewhere like Slough I'd go blue in the face.

And it's as you get older that you realize that the things that make you strange are the things that make you who you are. And that's a lovely place to get to.

I remember stealing some pic n' mix when I was seven; when I got out of the shop, I burst into tears.

Unfortunately I had an ankle problem and underwent three operations.

I've been told I make a very good brew.

I have endless playlists on my iPod so will throw on, say, Bruce Springsteen or The Smiths, depending on what kind of day I'm going to have.

Ever since I was young, I've read Austen and the Brontes. My friends laugh, but those books are always so tragic and wonderful - those stories, they're just incredible.

There's a reason hobble skirts are called hobble skirts. You literally can't move very far in them.

I really enjoy auditions anyway because I think that even if you come out of them, and you go in once and it never goes anywhere, there is something that you bring out of it or a note that will come back to your agent and that's the way you learn.

Everything you listen to when you are 17 should be embarrassing, otherwise you are way too cool.

I don't know if I'm so righteous.

I've read my grandmother's memoirs and she served as a nurse during World War II. What they had to do was incredible.

I'm really into strong, female roles - but they don't have to necessarily be loud - I'm just as interested in introverts too.