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.