I've often been the guy who doesn't get the girl.

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.

Am I athletic? In my dreams.

At 19, you know everything by the time you're 40, you haven't got a clue.

When you are in the eye of the storm, you are often not aware of the whiplash around you.

The press mainly want to destroy a program by revealing what's coming up. For some reason, soaps like doing that.

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.

I do realise how incredibly lucky I am.

I've had people come up to me in the past and say they enjoyed whatever show I've been in.

To go to the White House is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. In fact, the building is not that big.

Certain stories that you want to see resolve in certain ways are, and some aren't, but that's life.

A typical Christmas is me shucking oysters. I love them and I always get them in at Christmas.

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.

At home I have a Tibetan terrier. I'm still not sure if he's a genius or very thick. It's a fine line.

I had girlfriends, but settling down was the last thing on my mind.