I Have An Excellent Internal Compass.

You Have No Idea What's Going To Happen [in Downton Abbey] Until You Get The Script. We Roughly Knew A Couple Of The Key Points That Were Going To Happen, But When I Got The Last Episode, I Turned To The Last Page To Check That I Was Still Alive.

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.

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.