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.

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!

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.

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.

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

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

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