What I dislike about movie culture is that it often presents a parable of our problems – but the issues are all straightforward and the people are either nice or they’re not. In real life,...

I just don’t believe in generalisations.

I think I have a very detailed sense of observation. I am interested in the details of people’s lives and what information these details give.

The ’20s are a very interesting period to me.

It is a truism but it is still true that the longer one knows people the less relevant it becomes whether or not one liked them initially.

I have derived enormous confidence from being a husband and father.

I think America has dealt with – I mean, this is simplistic, and of course I don’t live in America – but the impression I get is that there is not a kind of obligation...

I envy people who can think, ‘No, I’m not going to work today’ when they have a huge pile of deadlines stacking up.

I think every period – except for the 14th century, or something – has some merits.

In the end, drama is successful if you care about the people.

The English country house is certainly an icon of British culture.

Bought marmalade? Oh dear, I call that very feeble.

I mean the truth is, I’ve always been interested in the whole setup of the Old World.

I think the reason why people love ‘Downton Abbey’ is because all the characters are given the same weight. Some are nice, some are not, but it has nothing to do with class or oppressors...

I like to take a long time over breakfast, and I can’t bear to talk. If a guest is a breakfast talker it’s very important to invite another so they can talk to each other....

I’m seen as a chronicler of the class system, which I don’t think is unfair.

To me, all success is a delightful surprise, since one can absolutely never predict it.

There is almost nothing in your house that does not tell something about you.

Education. Experience. Or are they the same thing?

You know, I’m not a revolutionary.

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.

Sometimes you watch one of your favorite shows from 20 years ago and you think, ‘I’m loving this, but golly, it’s going at the speed of a snail.’

If you’re supposed to be a ‘personality,’ then you might as well have a personality.

We live a life that is often spent in crowds – parties, festivals and first nights – so it’s nice to avoid them.

We don’t really like rules. We think, in some way, they are an infringement of liberty.

Do you think he’s the murderer?””It’s worse than that — he’s an actor!

A lot of actors find it impossible not to ask for the audience’s sympathy. They have a need to twinkle.

The great houses of Britain have, for centuries, been the guardians of much of our history, not just of the families who built and lived in them, but of the people who worked there, of...

Well, you’ve got to be known for something. The danger of extreme versatility is that you don’t spring to mind for anything.

Most of us don’t want to be outsiders.

When you make your first film, there is a hell of a lot to think about, and you’ve got to have a gut understanding of your material.

Although ‘L.A. Confidential’ is a long movie, there’s never a moment when you think, ‘I’m loving this… but when’s dinner?’ Each time I see it, I discover something I hadn’t noticed before. It has a...

Constance: Tell me, what happened to William’s little maid? I never saw her again after that dinner.Mary Maceachran: Elsie? — She’s gone.Constance: Oh, it’s a pity, really. I thought it was a good idea to...

I think American television changed world television in its reinvention of the series.

Morris Weissman [on the phone, discussing casting for his movie]: “What about Claudette Colbert? She’s British, isn’t she? She sounds British. Is she, like, affected or is she British?

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...

My childhood was a happy one, spent in a tall house in South Kensington and later in East Sussex, but my early and mid teens were less successful.

Most of the soap operas always use the Christmas special to kill huge quantities of their characters. So they have trams coming off their rails, or cars slamming into each other or burning buildings. It’s...

I come from a class which used to be called the gentry – which is nowadays mistakenly used to include the nobility, but in fact is not. The gentry was essentially the untitled landowning class.

Sometimes the weekend gets hijacked by work, but as my mother would say, this is the right problem.

I think Americans are wonderful film actors – the best in the world – but they are a very contemporary race and they look forward all the time.

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

If you are lucky, you have your moment. But it is never more than a moment. You have to enjoy it while it lasts.

My mother converted to Catholicism to marry my father.

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.

There are some men who are frightened by strong women and some men who are nurtured by them and feel nervous, with weak clinging vines. And I am very much of the latter category.

The moment I was introduced to my wife, Emma, at a party I thought, here she is – and 20 minutes later I told her she ought to marry me. She thought I was as...

What you have to understand about period drama is that it’s ‘history light.’

Nor should they be, but everyone needs to feel they’re part of something worthwhile. That, in the last analysis, their life has some meaning in a larger context. The questions is what am I part...

People tend to view history as if it were another planet and think the modern world was invented in 1963. I don’t agree.