I mean the truth is, I've always been interested in the whole setup of the old world.

I think it's always a challenge to adapt something from one medium to another - a novel into a film or a play into a movie or whatever.

What is a week-end? Maggie Smith in Downton Abbey.

If we don't respect the past, we'll find it harder to build a future.

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.

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.

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.