When people are feeling insecure about their jobs and there are cuts to be made, it's hard to put up an argument that the film industry needs funding.

Lust, that state commonly known as 'being in love,' is a kind of madness. It is a distortion of reality so remarkable that it should, by rights, enable most of us to understand the other forms of lunacy with the sympathy of fellow-sufferers. But, paradoxically, mad and suffering as one is, and the heat of the flame, few of us are glad as we feel that passion slip away No, while most people have been at their unhappiest when in love, it is nevertheless the state the human being yearns for above all.

You see, in America, it's quite standard for an actor to sign, at the beginning of a series, for five or seven years. The maximum any British agent will allow you to have over an actor is three years.

War makes early risers of us all.

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

If there's one thing I don't look for in a maid, it's discretion. Except with my own secrets, of course.

I always loved movies and the cinema; we always used to go to see films as a family.