At 19, You Know Everything; By The

I Think Any Film That Asks Its Audience A Degree Of Tolerance And Acceptance Of Those Less Fortunate Than Themselves Isn't A Bad Thing From Whatever Culture You're In Or From Whatever Part Of Any Political Spectrum.

I'd Love To Retire Somewhere Like Winchester, Where You Have One Foot On The Pavement But A Sense Of Being In The Country As Well.

A Typical Christmas Is Me Shucking Oysters. I Love Them And I Always Get Them In At Christmas.

It's Never Happened To Me Before, In My Career, And Never Will Again. It's A One-off Experience. It's A Rare Treat To Have A Cast Together For Six Years. Crews Come And Go, And A Few Of Them Have Been There Throughout, But Not Many. It's Rare, In My Experience, After 26 Years, To Have Had A Proper Company In A Show That Enjoys Each Other's Company, And Who Is Such A Fine Bunch Of People And Actors. To Have Struck A Chord With People, And To Have Had That Combination, Is Extremely Rare.

For The Last Episode [of Downton Abbey], You'll Need Some Handkerchiefs. I Needed Handkerchiefs Reading It. It Wasn't Because It Necessarily Moved Me While Reading It, But It Was The Experience Of Reading It When I Realized It Was The Last Time I Was Ever Going To Be Reading One Of Those Scripts. That Was Quite Terminal.