With big productions, you can sometimes get lost with the terminology and all the different departments.

It's never fun to be scared [about stage fright] but I think that it is important and it's healthy to always push yourself.

You always try to play it off cool, but even if I think I have a certain laidback body language when I'm meeting someone who I greatly admire, I still have this horrible tendency to go bright red.

I think booze is a good ritual. I think knocking back a shot of whiskey does calm the nerves and helps a lot.

There's a lovely freedom of will when you approach a character that no one has really come across before, because it is your own interpretation.

The honeymoon phase always ends, for everyone.

Graduating at the age of 21 was a wonderful age to hopefully start a career.

Unfortunately I don't have my grandparents, but Mum and I are working quite well together. That's candid, that's frank. Your grandmother is never going to lie to you.

I don't really think it matters if you go into stage or TV as long as you do a bit of character work, really.

I had the most fantastic time filming 'Downton.'

First and foremost, Scotland is my home, and I do consider myself Scottish, but I also feel very British, and I hope that Scotland stays within the Union. I have a real concern about independence.

Whatever it is that you want to do, do it today because you can handle the pain of trying hard now but you won’t be able to handle the pain of regret later.

Bitterness is like cancer. It eats upon the host. But anger is like fire. It burns it all clean.

At the end of faith there is always some calamity

Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground.

I take positives out of negatives all the time.

Round my cradle shimmered the last moonbeams of the eighteenth century and the first morning rays of the nineteenth.

Style is originality; fashion is fascism. The two are eternally and unalterably opposed.

My work is my life, and my life is my work. I invented this assault rifle to defend my country. Today, I am proud that it has become for many synonymous with liberty.

I scourge both flesh and spirit because I know that I have offended in both flesh and spirit.

Often it's just a short swim from the shipwreck of your life to the island paradise of your dreams, assuming you don't drown in the metaphor.