It's hard being gay in Edwardian times.

My mom and dad put my brother and sister through university and they were very keen for us to have an academic background just to give us a chance.

There's definitely a wave of Brits doing great work on American television, and I wouldn't mind being one of them!

And there are lots of moments when I think, ‘What am I doing as an actor? I can’t act!’

When you're kissing a woman and you want it to look realistic, you're thinking, 'Am I taking advantage of her? Is her boyfriend going to think I'm over-stepping the mark? Whereas when you are kissing a man, those thoughts don't cross your mind. I'm more scared of it looking false, so I went for it fully to make it look real and hopefully I've achieved that.

I think because of my background - I went through university and did an academic career and fell into acting - I've never had a game plan for my career because I got into it quite ad hoc.

I'm proud of the fact that Downton Abbey was born in a recession, at a time when ITV had dropped a lot of drama programmes. And I know that because I was out of work at the time!