The honeymoon phase always ends, for everyone.

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.

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.

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

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.

Are you one of those people who uses words more for the sound than for the sense of them?

Who are we but the stories we tell ourselves, about ourselves, and believe?

lies can run but they can’t hide

We are acting on our desire; there is nothing wrong. Just remember if it does not pan out, if our desires go unfulfilled, it's perfect!

You want to love everyone equally, and that's worse than impossible--it's wrong.

The great thing and the hard thing is to stick to things when you have outlived the first interest, and not yet got the second, which comes with a sort of mastery.

I want women to be the subject, not the object.

When youre the lead actor in a drama, you have 2 1/2 months at the end of a season to do other projects, and everything has to get done in that time.

The measure of your quality as a public person, as a citizen, is the gap between what you do and what you say.

I swear I could write a book about all the things no one has ever thanked me for.